


South Park Fairy Tales

by hollycomb



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Animal Transformation, Arranged Marriage, Cows, M/M, Magic, Matchmaking, Milking, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 51,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of fairy tale AUs featuring the South Park characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Inn at the Edge of the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, well, these aren't traditional fairy tales with Stan and Kyle's names pasted into them. These are fairy tale-ish scenarios featuring magic, sex, and sometimes sex magic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Butters is a lonely innkeeper whose only friend is Clyde, is a humble cabbage dealer. One day, a mysterious red haired man comes to stay at the inn with his beloved black rabbit.

Though the inn hasn't had a guest in several weeks, Butters still gets up at dawn to start cleaning as if to prepare for a sudden onslaught of tourists. It's partly because he's naturally optimistic, and partly because if Eric happens by -- which is also unlikely, as he hasn't been seen in these lands in months -- he'll blame the inn's lack of patrons on any stray speck of dust he can locate. Butters suspects it's probably his wayward husband's reputation as a heartless sorcerer that keeps the guests away, but he'd never say so to Eric.  
  
His only hope of having a customer is via his only friend from the nearby town, Clyde, who was officially christened Village Idiot after he fell for a mean prank involving an alleged princess who wanted to marry him and make him her knight. Butters thinks it's an unfair title, considering that Clyde was only sixteen at the time, but he appreciates having a fellow outcast to have tea with once in a while, and is also grateful when Clyde can convince someone passing through the village to stay at Butters' inn, which really is nicer than the rowdy one in town that sits atop the pub.  
  
Clyde is a cabbage merchant who uses his cart to taxi travelers about for extra money, and whenever Butters hears the cabbage cart coming up the road -- a distinctive sound, as it's pulled by asses rather than horses -- he's hopeful that Clyde will come bearing a passenger who will want room and board. He grins when he sees that today, that is the case, and he turns back to the kitchen to make sure everything is in place for a guest. It is, as usual: the fire is glowing from the hearth, the front walk is neatly swept and lined with blooming flowers, and his work in the kitchen has filled the cottage with the scent of sweet baked rolls. It's the sort of home that Butters hoped he would have with Eric after they were married. He supposes he technically does have this home, but he rarely shares the bed with Eric, who moved on to new conquests after Butters ripened to the less desirable age of nineteen.  
  
"Hello!" Butters calls out, waving to the grouchy looking man in the back of Clyde's cart. He looks quite foreign and exotic, owing to his wild red curls, expensive-looking cloak, and the fact that he's clutching a fuzzy black rabbit to his chest. "Welcome!" Butters says when Clyde's asses come to a halt. "Have you come looking for a room?"  
  
"Yes," the man says, and he dismounts carefully, brushing cabbage bits from his cloak with one hand, still holding the rabbit with the other. "For two nights. We need rest before journeying into the Enchanted Wood."  
  
"Oh, wow! I know it's close by, but I've never been to the Wood. Are you a magical sort of fellow?" Butters isn't sure what the man meant by 'we,' as he seems to be the only passenger. Clyde dismounts and ties his asses to Butters' fence. He'll be wanting a meal in exchange for the business, but Butters never minds having company.  
  
"Not magical, no," the red haired man says, rather sternly. "We simply have business there. Have you got a room for us?"  
  
"Of course! I mean, ah, yes. Clyde, could you give me a hand with the bags?" Butters wonders if he should take the rabbit, which is a jet black and oddly calm in the man's grip. "Is that something you'd like me to cook for you?" Butters asks, wondering if he caught it near here. "I know a real good rabbit stew recipe."  
  
"No!" The man turns his shoulder toward Butters, scowling. "How dare you presume that I would! This is -- this is my beloved pet. I won't stay here unless you guarantee he won't come to harm."  
  
"Oh, certainly not!" Butters glances at Clyde, who is standing with the man's bags. Clyde is a man of few words, but Butters understands when their eyes meet that Clyde thinks this stranger is odd, too. "I didn't mean to offend you, mister-- Mister--?"  
  
"I am Kyle of East Orange. You may address me by that name."  
  
Butters thinks it a bit odd that such a fancy gentlemen would offer his given name as opposed to his surname, but he nods in agreement and helps Clyde with the bags. At the front desk that he's fashioned out of an old dressing cabinet with the drawers turned toward the wall, he accepts the first night's payment in gold and offers the guest book, which Kyle signs only with his first name and town of origin.  
  
"You," Kyle says to Clyde when he returns from setting Kyle's things in the best guest bedroom. Kyle produces a small silver bowl and sets it on the counter beside the guest book. "Fetch some fresh water for my rabbit. I'll take something stronger if you've got it," he says to Butters, who watches with trepidation as the rabbit makes its way across the counter top and toward the bowl, its little nose twitching. The thing hasn't answered nature's calling yet, but Butters thinks it's got to be just a matter of time. He normally doesn't allow pets, though he has to admit that the little thing looks quite clean, even silky.  
  
"I've got some mulled wine," Butters says.  
  
"Good. I'll take the bottle in my room. We -- I'm craving privacy and quiet, which is why I've chosen this inn over the one in town. I hope you can respect this."  
  
"Oh, sure! Will I see you for dinner?"  
  
"I will come to retrieve my plate at whatever time you serve, but I will consume the meal in my room, if that is acceptable."  
  
"Fine by me," Butters says, kind of disappointed. He likes talking to folks. "In fact, I'll even bring it to you, no trouble." He watches Clyde pour some water into the silver bowl. The rabbit inspects it briefly before drinking.  
  
"Alright, then," Kyle says, plucking the little creature gently from the counter when it's had its fill. He picks up the bowl and nods to Butters, then to Clyde. "Thank you both. I will retire now."  
  
When the door to the guest room is closed, Butters gives Clyde a wide-eyed look, and Clyde smiles.  
  
"Where'd you find him?" Butters asks, whispering.  
  
"Wandering around town carrying that rabbit. I thought he looked pretty lost."  
  
"He's going to the Enchanted Wood!" Butters walks around and takes Clyde's arm, pulling him toward the kitchen, where they'll be able to speak at a normal volume. "I don't know if he'll do very well there. It's a pretty rough place, Eric says."  
  
"I've never been." Clyde walks over to the tin of freshly baked rolls and sniffs them. "Can I have one of these?"  
  
"Well, sure! I've got apple butter, too, you want some of that?"  
  
"You know it."  
  
Butters decides to make a proper lunch of it, and he heats up some cheese soup, sets out slices of salted pork and pours a little beer for both of them. Clyde always has a hearty appetite, which is something Butters admires in a man. He'd loved that about Eric, once.  
  
"He been by lately?" Clyde asks while his face is still half-lowered to his plate. He's eaten four rolls already, with lots of butter and pork piled on them, sometimes dipping them in the soup as well.  
  
"You mean Eric?" Butters says, though he knows that's who Clyde means. Clyde looks up from his food and nods. Butters shakes his head slowly. "No, he sure hasn't. Hasn't written to me, either," he adds, though Eric never wrote, even when they were courting.  
  
"I heard he's in the low country making trouble," Clyde says. "You better look out that his trouble doesn't come down on you."  
  
"Well, what am I to do if it does? I don't have any magic powers like him. I'm a sitting duck, Clyde."  
  
"I'll bring you a sword," Clyde says, returning to his food.  
  
"Clyde! What -- you can't afford a sword, can you?"  
  
Clyde grunts and drags a roll through the last of his soup. Butters grabs the ladle and serves him a little more from the pot.  
  
"I suppose you're right," Clyde says glumly. "But if I find a sword, I'll bring it to you."  
  
"Thanks, Clyde," Butters says, touched, though also dismayed, because Clyde has about as much chance of finding a useful sword than he does a magic lamp with a genie inside.  
  
Clyde stays until dusk, when he must return to care for his ailing father, who has been melancholic since the loss of Clyde's mother. There is a cruel rumor in town that Clyde himself was to blame for the loss of his mother, having accidentally knocked her down the well where she fell to her death, but Butters has never believed that. He sets about making dinner for himself and his guest, in a cheerful mood because of the long day spent in simple conversation with Clyde, and because he'll finally be able to collect a few nights' worth of gold from a customer. Because his guest seems to be somewhat refined, despite his odd devotion to that rabbit, he makes a delicate fish recipe with thinly sliced potatoes and fresh herbs. Twice while cooking he thinks he hears Kyle talking from behind the closed door of his room, and assumes that he's just chattering at that rabbit. Butters can forgive this eccentricity; when Clyde is kept in town by bad weather, Butters sometimes get so lonely that he talks to his cooking utensils as he works.  
  
He approaches with the tray shortly after nightfall, startled when he thinks he hears another voice from within the room, lower and calmer than Kyle's. He knocks, and all goes quiet inside.  
  
Kyle opens the door only slightly, peeking out at Butters. He's changed into simpler clothing and smells as if he's bathed.  
  
"Hungry, sir?" Butters asks, lifting the tray. Kyle eyes it with what seems like suspicion.  
  
"Oh -- yes. I'll take that." He inches the door open just widely enough to get the tray through. Butters can see that he's lit the fire himself and already mussed the sheets, but he can't see whatever Kyle has done with the rabbit. Butters has been slightly concerned; if the animal does damage and Eric finds out, there will be a curse put on rabbits throughout the land.  
  
"I put some things on the side there for your pet," Butters says, gesturing to a bowl of raw vegetables. "Has he got everything he needs?"  
  
"Yes, thank you," Kyle says curtly, and then he shuts the door in Butters' face.  
  
Butters eats his fish and potatoes alone in the kitchen, pleased that the recipe turned out well but sad that his guest isn't dining with him and complimenting the meal. Butters has always been an excellent cook. Eric used to love his rabbit stew, and he once called Butters the perfect spouse. Butters had been so excited at the courtship, and his parents so pleased that a wealthy wizard like Eric took an interest in their simple son. He wants to know where he went wrong, how he lost Eric's affection, but he supposes it's just that he's not as exciting as Eric's travels around the world. Eric has never invited Butters along, but he's not sure he would like all that adventure anyhow. He wants a life here, in this cottage, with someone who comes eagerly to the table for every meal.  
  
At night in bed, Butters thinks of Clyde, and recalls how he'd licked cheese soup from the corner of his mouth several times. He knows it's wrong, because he's a married man, and feels terribly guilty when he begins to imagine grunting and thrusting noises, a headboard slapping against a wall. He sits up in bed when he realizes he's not imagining it at all: it's coming from the guest room.  
  
Fearing that his guest is being attacked by an intruder who slipped through the window, Butters springs from bed, wishing he had a sword. In lieu of one, he takes up a heavy candlestick and creeps toward the guest room, his heart pounding. Whatever is going in there sounds violent indeed, and Butters can hear Kyle's helpless cries through the door. He throws it open with a shout, hoping to startle the intruder enough to put him off his guard for a moment.  
  
The intruder, a large, dark, and somewhat hairy man, is indeed caught off guard, and so it seems is Kyle, who is bent over the bed sideways, beneath the hairy man, who has paused in mid-thrust. They are both naked, splayed and breathless, and neither of them looks glad that Butters has intervened.  
  
"Get out!" Kyle shouts. "At once!"  
  
"Are you -- you're alright?"  
  
"I'm perfectly fine, goddamn you, be gone!"  
  
Butters meets the dark man's eyes briefly, and he looks so mortified and scared that it seems true that he can't be doing anything unwanted. Butters flees, his face burning. He can hear Kyle still cursing him from within the room. He sneaks back to his own bedroom, tiptoeing as if he's the intruder, and by the time he reaches the door the thrusting has resumed, through more quietly.  
  
In bed, Butters lies under the sheets and stares at the ceiling, unwilling to tend to the erection that has developed as a result of glimpsing a sex act that he hasn't enjoyed in over a year. The last time Eric came home, he asked for a hot meal and got so drunk while consuming it that he was passed out immediately afterward. Butters cuddled up to him, but it wasn't the same with Eric unconscious and snoring, and when Butters awoke, Eric was gone again.  
  
In the morning, Butters is up early, having slept poorly after what he saw. He makes enough breakfast for four people, in case Kyle's friend has stayed the night and on the off chance that Clyde, Eric, or someone else will come by. Kyle sleeps late and exits his room alone, again carrying the bunny, which he sets on the breakfast table. Butters bites his tongue to keep from protesting.  
  
"Well?" Kyle says, sitting down across from Butters. "Have you got anything to say for yourself?"  
  
"Ah -- no?"  
  
"Really? You're not going to apologize for barging in on me last night? What kind of inn is this!"  
  
"It's not the sort where we let an extra person stay for free!" Butters says, trying to puff himself up a bit. "If you've got another companion, he's welcome to stay in your bed, but I'll be charging you for it."  
  
"No one is staying in my bed," Kyle says. His face has colored, despite his attempt at nonchalance. "That was a brief visit from an old friend, and he did not use your washing soap, hot water, consume any extra food or any additional resources at all. He was gone before dawn, when our business was concluded."  
  
"Business?" Butters says, because if he's got a whore staying with him he could be fined by the county for operating a brothel.  
  
"Perhaps the wrong word choice," Kyle says. "Nevertheless, I take it I'm still welcome here for another night?" He takes out some gold and lays it on the table. It's slightly more than he paid yesterday. Butters accepts it with a nod.  
  
"I was just startled is all," he says. "I thought maybe you were being attacked!"  
  
"Our love making does have a primitive nature at times," Kyle says, looking pleased with himself. He tears off a bit of cranberry muffin and offers it to the bunny, who nibbles it eagerly.  
  
In the afternoon, Butters washes up and goes into the guest room to change the sheets while Kyle is out. He's taken the rabbit with him, and Butters finds no sign of a cage or little bed for the thing in the room, but also no sign of mess or damage, which is a relief. Perhaps the thing, so dear to Kyle, is well-trained. He does find evidence of what he feels is excessive ejaculation, all over the sheets and in at least one spot on the floor.  
  
When he goes out to pick herbs to dress his lunch, he spots Kyle in a nearby meadow, napping in the sunlight while his rabbit frisks about in the grass, munching wildflowers. He's surprised that Kyle is willing to close his eyes while the thing is vulnerable to hawks, then realizes that Kyle isn't napping at all, only drowsing a bit, his eyelids heavy against the sun. Kyle puts his hand out and the rabbit dashes into it, nuzzling Kyle's palm as if he had called out to it. Something about witnessing this makes Butters feel uneasy and voyeuristic.  
  
Butters lunches alone, sad but not surprised that Clyde doesn't show up to join him. Clyde visits only once or twice a week, the journey from the village not being a particularly short one, and he's usually selling cabbage if not bringing a visitor. Butters is not fond of cabbage but he usually buys some, though Eric positively hates the stench. When Kyle returns to his room he gives Butters a polite but guarded nod, and spends the rest of the day shut in there, at one point taking what Butters estimates, by the sound of it, to be an hour long bath.  
  
Annoyed by the events of the night before, Butters puts less effort into dinner on the second night of Kyle's stay. He uses the remainder of the potatoes and cheese soup to make a kind of impromptu onion pie. Again, he sets aside a bowl of fresh vegetables for the rabbit.  
  
At dusk, Kyle breezes out into the kitchen while Butters is arranging the tray. He seems revitalized by his day in the meadow, or perhaps by that hard fucking the night before. Butters wants to ask who that man was and how he got into the inn, but feels as if he shouldn't. He's surprised that Kyle left the rabbit in the room, unattended.  
  
"That looks delicious," Kyle says, leaning over the tray of onion pie. "Last night's selection was a bit too spare for me. Well-seasoned, but I like a heartier meal, like this. Could I have -- a bigger piece?"  
  
"Well, sure!" Flattered, Butters cuts another sizable square from the casserole and slides it onto Kyle's plate. "Would you like some more wine?"  
  
"Yes, please," Kyle says, and he takes the bottle from Butters' hand before he can produce some glasses for the two of them. "Thanks!" Kyle calls, sashaying toward the guest room with the wine and food. Butters scowls after him, wondering if he's some kind of runaway royalty who thinks every uncrowned person he encounters is a servant in some form or another.  
  
Butters eats several helpings of onion pie himself, feeling depressed. He wanted some of that wine, and is not sure that having guests here is all it's cracked up to be, though he certainly needs the money. The supply of gold Eric left for him last time he was here was hardly generous, and it's dwindling.  
  
He's cleaning the dishes when he hears giggling from the guest room. Suspicious, he dries his hands and tiptoes toward the door, hearing voices now: first Kyle's and then another, spoken low and unmistakably different. He waits in the hallway, his heart beating fast as he tries to decide what to do. Kyle has that man in there again, and they're drinking Butters' wine together, having a fine time, and having a laugh because they think they've successfully cheated him out of a second fee for room and board. Of course Kyle wanted two pieces of onion pie! And no wonder he wants to eat in his room. Furious, Butters walks up to the door and prepares to knock.  
  
Before he can, the sex noises start up again. The door is thin, and he's close enough to hear even the kissing sounds. A kind of profound sadness seems to root his feet to the ground. He would really like to be kissed again someday.  
  
Once the moaning and headboard-thumping starts up, Butters is brought out of his trance. Not wanting to wait until they've had their fun at his expense, he knocks forcefully on the door.  
  
"Shit!" Kyle says from within. Butters can hear them both panting. "What?" Kyle calls.  
  
"I can hear you in there, gentlemen! And I'm rightly owed a second boarder's fee, whether that fella in your bed stays the full night or not!"  
  
There's some muttered conversation. Kyle sounds angry, and the other man is saying that they owe Butters an explanation. Damn right they do!  
  
"Just give us a moment!" Kyle shouts. "For god's sake, man, you wait until the worst times to intervene. It's suspiciously perverse, frankly."  
  
"Kyle," the other man says, scolding. Kyle grunts.  
  
"I will be in the kitchen," Butters says, proud of himself for not backing down, though he is grinding his fists together nervously. "You fellas make yourself decent and come out to pay me what I'm owed, you hear?"  
  
"Yes, fine," Kyle grumbles. "Just leave us be for a moment!"  
  
If they continue their love making, they do so at a volume that is not audible from the kitchen, where Butters lights the fire and puts on a kettle, unable to resist making the scene a bit hospitable. He's getting out some spice cookies as he hears them come in. The cookies are slightly stale, and he tells himself not to fret over it.  
  
When he turns, he sees them both standing in the doorway, Kyle looking defiant and the dark haired man rather cowed and apologetic. He's taller than Kyle, and thicker, and has a handsome face. His clothes are ill-fitting and much less fine than Kyle's embroidered robe, beneath which Butters fears Kyle is naked.  
  
"Well," Kyle says. "I suppose you think you can charge us full price for a second boarder."  
  
"What do you call him?" Butters asks, gesturing to the other man. "A figment of your imagination?"  
  
"I call him Stan. That's his name. But it's more complicated than it looks."  
  
"Wait a minute," Butters says, noticing the silkiness of Stan's black hair, the black fuzz on his arms looking strangely familiar. Butters gasps and jumps backward when it dawns on him. "You -- you're some kinda shape shifter! You're that rabbit!"  
  
"I'm not a shape shifter," Stan says, his shoulders raising sheepishly. "I'm cursed."  
  
"He was attacked by an evil warlock," Kyle says. He puts his arm around Stan, drawing him close and petting Stan's chest with his other hand. "But fortunately his attacker was also a highly incompetent, drunken warlock who does sloppy magic. The curse wears off nightly, at sundown, but it reinstates itself when the sun rises again."  
  
"That's why you want to go to the Enchanted Wood!"  
  
"Yeah," Stan says. "We're desperate for magic. I can't live like this."  
  
"How come a warlock cursed you?" Butters asks, thinking of Cartman, who never has a particularly good reason for putting evil spells on people.  
  
"He was teasing Kyle at a royal party," Stan says. "I came to his defense."  
  
"A royal party?" Butters grins and glances at Kyle. "I knew you were a prince!"  
  
"I'm not," Kyle says. "Stan is the prince. I'm the son of his father's top advisor. We grew up together, and we're--" Kyle glances at Stan, who smiles at him tiredly. "In love," Kyle says, hugging himself against Stan's chest.  
  
"Aw," Butters says. "That's real sweet. But listen, you two. There's more bad than good in the Enchanted Forest. Not just witches and such but trolls, goblins -- and mean little imps who will keep you in there forever if they can turn you around and get you lost!"  
  
"We've got no choice," Kyle says. "I thought at first, when we discovered that the curse would wear off during the night, that we could live with it, but it's not right for Stan to have only half a life."  
  
"You can't tell anyone you've encountered us," Stan says. "Least of all someone from the kingdom of East Orange. Once I was a rabbit, my sister took my place as heir, and she tried to have me killed when I revealed to her that I still had half a human form. Kyle used a rabbit from the kitchens to help me fake my death, but if she finds out I'm alive she'll send assassins after me."  
  
"And he's so helpless as a rabbit!" Kyle says, still clutching at him. "And I'm no warrior."  
  
"Well, that's bad news," Butters says. "'Cause you'll need a warrior with you in the Enchanted Wood!"  
  
"I was in the royal army," Stan says. "We'll travel at night and hide during the day."  
  
Butters shakes his head, because that's easier said than done. He sets out the cookies and pours three cups of tea, wondering if he should mention that he's married to a powerful wizard. He decides he'd better not, since he doesn't know where Eric is, when he'll return, or if he'd be willing to help some travelers for the sake of the inn's good reputation.  
  
"What's it like, being a rabbit?" Butters asks when Stan nibbles at a stale cookie.  
  
"I don't really remember," Stan says. "I'm not myself when I'm in that form, not really. It's as if I'm truly an animal."  
  
"But you let Kyle hold you and so forth! I've never seen a rabbit that wasn't nervous and jumping away from people."  
  
"I guess something in me just knows him, and wants to be with him."  
  
Stan and Kyle smile at each other sadly, and Butters' heart breaks for them. Though Stan is strong-looking and Kyle seems intelligent, he doubts they'll be any match for what's waiting for them in the Enchanted Wood, and even if they do survive, there's little chance that they'll run across a charitable witch or a grove of all-purpose curse breaking mushrooms, though he has heard those exist.  
  
"I'd like to pay you for your kindness," Kyle says when Butters refills their tea, "And for your promise of discretion, but I'm afraid I've already given you all the gold I can spare. I have a paltry amount saved for anyone in the Wood who might be willing to trade it for a cure, and I fear it's already too little."  
  
"Don't fret," Butters says, wanting to give them a refund for the nights they'd already paid for, though that would be a very bad idea. If Cartman hears that Butters had guests and has no money to show for it, Butters might get turned into a rabbit himself, or worse. Thinking this, he swallows down his tea awkwardly and has to cough a bit. "This warlock," he says, drawing his fingertip through some sugar that he spilled on the table. "Did he -- what did he look like?"  
  
"Like a big fat lard in fine robes stained with gravy," Kyle says eagerly. "Not much older than us, but losing his hair. You'd think he'd have a spell for that. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Oh, no reason!" Butters' heart started beating fast. That sure sounded like Eric, who sometimes referred to himself as a warlock while drinking.  
  
"He's wanted in my kingdom," Stan says. "For murder, since everyone but my traitorous sister thinks I'm dead."  
  
"I'm sure he's wanted lots of places," Butters says, and he gulps from his tea, though it's too hot for gulping. "Um, I'd think. Since he sounds like a bad guy."  
  
"He's a psychotic mound of dog shit!" Kyle says, and he pounds his fist onto the table. Stan reaches over to rub Kyle's back, which seems to calm him slightly. "And I've no doubt he sold his soul in exchange for his powers," Kyle says, huffing.  
  
Stan and Kyle retire to bed shortly afterward, with plans to leave for the Wood at first light. Butters cleans the kitchen, distracted and sad. Eric has surely been ruining lives like theirs all over the globe for years. How could Butters have ever been blind enough to marry him? Now he's stuck alone, tending an empty inn, hated by the village, watching travelers head into the murderous Wood in desperation because of things Eric has done on a drunken whim.  
  
Butters is barely able to sleep, and he wakes early, hearing Clyde's cart come up the road. It's just before dawn, and Butters imagines Stan and Kyle whispering a tender goodbye to each other in bed, knowing that soon Kyle will be lying beside a rabbit instead of the man he loves. The Wood will surely sense the purity of their connection and fall upon them at once with all its dark powers. Butters feels almost sick to his stomach with sympathy for them as he walks out to meet Clyde, whose cart is full of cabbages.  
  
"Have your guests left yet?" Clyde asks as he dismounts.  
  
"No, they're leaving this morning. Oh, Clyde, they're in an awful predicament! That rabbit--" Butters isn't sure he should say it, but Clyde is no gossip and scarcely speaks to anyone else, except to ask them if they want to buy cabbage. "That rabbit is a prince of East Orange, transfigured by a wizard's spell!"  
  
"Oh," Clyde says, and then he waits for more, but Butters isn't sure what else to say. "Really?"  
  
"Yes, really! I saw his human form! He sheds the curse at night, but is overtaken by it again in the mornings. They're going into the Wood to try to cure him! But I think they must be doomed!"  
  
"Hey." Clyde puts his hands on Butters' shoulders. They're very warm, perhaps from the rub of the reigns on his asses. "Calm down. Let's go inside."  
  
Butters lets Clyde guide him into a seat at the table, and he accepts some tea. Clyde moves around his kitchen easily, familiar with it. Butters so likes the thought that Clyde knows where his sugar is kept that his eyes nearly overflow.  
  
"There, there," Clyde says, dragging his chair close to Butters'. "I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."  
  
"I'm sure it is, Clyde, I'm just sure. And furthermore--" He leans close, putting his lips against Clyde's ear. "I think Eric's the one who cursed them!"  
  
Clyde is pink-cheeked when Butters pulls back, waiting for a reaction. After a moment of what seems like shock, Clyde shakes his head slowly.  
  
"I hate that son of a bitch," he says.  
  
"Oh--" Butters feels as if something in his chest has cracked open. It hurts, but also seems to relieve a tremendous pressure that had been building for years. He nods. "Me too, I think."  
  
Clyde and Butters stare at each other for a long moment, only breaking eye contact when a door is thrown open. Butters assumes it's Kyle coming out of the guest room, but when he turns toward the foyer he sees that it's the front door that's opened.  
  
As if summoned by their mutual hatred for him, Eric strides into the cottage.  
  
"Just what the hell is that cabbage cart doing parked on my property?" Eric bellows in lieu of a greeting. He points toward the front yard. "That thing is a reeking eyesore pulled by a couple of the saddest looking asses I've ever had the displeasure of laying eyes on. It's bad advertising, Butters! Makes this place look like a low rent dump, you understand?"  
  
"Eric," Butters says, standing. His head is spinning, and he feels as if the room has suddenly flooded with cold water, waking him from a nap. "I -- it's been so long, you must be hungry."  
  
"You!" Eric points at Clyde. "Village Idiot! Remove your pathetic inventory from my land at once."  
  
"Yes, sir," Clyde says. The nasal tone of his voice does a good job of cloaking his resentment, although Butters can feel it simmering in the air between them. "Only I'm waiting, you see, for the previous night's guests to check out. They've requested transport to the Enchanted Wood."  
  
For a moment Butters thinks Clyde is brilliant for coming up with this lie so quickly, but then he realizes that Clyde has just damned Stan and Kyle to encounter Eric. Briefly, he understands why the term Village Idiot should be applied to his friend, but when he looks at Clyde in disbelief, Clyde seems unfazed, even calculating.  
  
"Ah, you managed to snare some guests?" Eric says, walking into the kitchen. "Excellent. Where's their fee?"  
  
"The gold is in my bedroom," Butters says. "Shall I--"  
  
Before he can ask to fetch it and use this as an excuse to warn Stan and Kyle to flee, the guest room door opens and Kyle dashes out, clutching Stan to his chest. Stan has reverted from the sizable prince with the hairy arms to a helpless fuzzy bunny.  
  
"You!" Kyle roars, his eyes flashing as if bolts of pure wrath will shoot from them and slice Eric's throat. Butters wishes that were possible, or at least that Kyle had magic, too, something to make this a fair fight.  
  
"I'm sorry?" Eric says. "Do I know you?" His eyes fall on Stan, and his lips curve into a slow, cruel smile. "Ah, yessss! Little prince Stanley, the most regal rodent in all the land! I thought you were dead, my liege?"  
  
"You will undo this curse at once!" Kyle says, shaking with rage. "Or a thousand knights of East Orange will descend upon this place and drag you into a dungeon for the harm you've done to the prince!"  
  
"Ha!" Eric throws his head back and laughs uproariously. "I'm sure. I'll hold my breath until that happens. Ah, but why would you want him to be turned back? You make such a fetching couple like this! Can't he crawl up your ass to satisfy you the way he once did?"  
  
"I will kill you myself!" Kyle shouts, placing Stan down on the floor. He scampers toward Butters' feet.  
  
"I'm too hungry for this trite nonsense," Eric says, lifting his staff. Butters sucks in his breath, wanting to squat down and shield the helpless prince but too terrified to move. "Butters," Eric says, "Cook me some pancakes. Bacon, syrup, and don't bother with any frivolities like fruit. As for you," he says, pointing his staff at Kyle, who doesn't seem to know where to start with killing Eric. "I'll grant your wish. You and your prince can be together again, as equals."  
  
Butters knows what's happened even before the smoke of the afterspell clears. Kyle is on the floor, a strikingly colored but otherwise common looking rabbit, fuzzy and red all over with floppy ears. He hops over toward Stan while Eric laughs madly.  
  
"Eric, please!" Butters says, running over to tug on the sleeve of his robe. "I'll cook you anything you want, but you can't really do this, not permanently! You've had a laugh, they've learned their lesson! Just change them back and forget all about it!"  
  
"Quit bothering me," Eric says, shoving Butters toward the stove. "And get cooking. You should be happy that I've made a pair of pets to keep you company here. If you couldn't make better food than anything I can conjure I would have turned you into a canary years ago, to spare the strain on my nerves."  
  
Butters turns toward the stove, tears stinging his eyes. The rabbits are under the table, huddling together as if frightened. He's almost forgotten that Clyde is still in the kitchen when he hears a tremendous crack from behind him, like someone has kicked the front door in two.  
  
He turns in time to see Eric crumbling to the ground, Clyde standing over him and brandishing a heavy frying pan.  
  
"Clyde!" Butters shouts, afraid that Eric will right himself and turn Clyde into an ass, or maybe a piece of cabbage. But Eric doesn't move. "Have you killed him?" Butters asks, not sure what he's hoping for. It would be a shame for Clyde to tarnish his sweetness with murder, even if Eric was his victim.  
  
"I don't think so," Clyde says, squatting down to check Eric's pulse. "He's alive, just knocked out."  
  
"Tie him up!" Butters shrieks, and Clyde grins, tossing Eric's staff to Butters. Eric is powerless without it.  
  
When Eric has been firmly secured with several ropes from the yard, Butters turns toward the rabbits. They've come out from under the table and are sniffing around obliviously, looking for crumbs.  
  
"Oh, no," Butters says. "How can we help them now? Even if the East Orange knights come to arrest Eric, he'll never right this wrong, not even under torture. He's too proud and too mean."  
  
"We don't need him," Clyde says, gesturing to the staff. "We've got that."  
  
"But not anyone can use a wizard's staff! They have to be trained!"  
  
"Or pure of heart," Clyde says. "That's you."  
  
"Oh -- I'm not, really." Butters blushes, thinking of how he's masturbated to the thought of Clyde entering him, and how greedy for domestic comforts he'd been when he married Eric. "Maybe you should try."  
  
"Nah," Clyde says. "I'm not pure."  
  
"Sure you are! You take care of your old dad."  
  
"Trust me, Butters. I'm not pure."  
  
"How come?"  
  
"'Cause every time I eat at that table I want to put you over it and fuck your ass!" Clyde says, and he seems shocked by his own outburst, his eyes going wide. "Sorry," he mumbles.  
  
"That's alright," Butters says. "Ah -- I mean, wanting that can be pure, in a way. So long as you didn't want to hurt me by it."  
  
"I'd never hurt you," Clyde says, stepping closer. "But I still think you should try to use the staff, not me."  
  
"What if I've thought about it, too?" Butters' face is hot, getting hotter. "About, um. Your wiener and so forth."  
  
"The fact that you call it a wiener speaks volumes," Clyde says, pushing the staff into Butters' hand. "Oh, shit," he says, looking at the rabbits. Stan has mounted Kyle and is giving him all he's got. "Are they having sex?"  
  
"Seems like it."  
  
"I've never seen rabbits have sex before."  
  
"Well, me either, Clyde, but I can't imagine what else that might be."  
  
"Try it now," Clyde says, nodding to the staff. "While they're, uh. Expressing their love. That'll help the spell."  
  
"But what do I say?"  
  
"You don't have to say anything! Cartman didn't say anything when he turned Kyle into a rabbit. Just think about what you want and point the stick."  
  
Butters moans nervously. If he messes this up, Stan and Kyle might be blown to bits. As it is, at least they're obliviously happy, humping there on the floor, still together. But there's something obscene about it, as opposed to what Butters had walked in on when they were both human, which was really sort of tender, if sweaty and loud.  
  
"Here goes," Butters says, hoisting the staff. He puts out his free hand and Clyde takes it. Butters closes his eyes and thinks about Stan and Kyle at his table last night, and tries to picture them growing up together in East Orange, Stan wearing his little prince's crown and Kyle squeezed beside him in the king's throne, kicking their legs and laughing, pretending they ruled the kingdom together. It's such a sweet image, he thinks, holding in tears.  
  
"Butters!" Clyde is shaking his shoulders, and Butters opens his eyes. On the floor, Stan is still humping Kyle, but they're considerably less fuzzy now, restored to their human selves.  
  
"What," Kyle says, still jerking his hips back to meet Stan's dick. "What -- wait. Where are we?"  
  
"Hmm?" Stan says, his face on the back of Kyle's neck. He opens his eyes, looks around, and stops moving his hips. "Oh. Oh, shit."  
  
"It's okay!" Butters says, hurrying to throw the tablecloth over them. "You're okay, you're here at the inn!"  
  
"The inn?" Kyle says. "Oh, shit, where's that fat warlock?"  
  
"He's restrained!" Butters says. "You're safe."  
  
Stan pulls out then, and throws up onto Kyle's back before he can fully disconnect. Kyle shouts and Stan does lots of apologizing, then weeping, and soon Butters is ushering them back into the guest room for privacy and bathing.  
  
"Do you think it will stick?" Butters asks when he returns to Clyde, who is gamely mopping up the vomit that spilled onto the kitchen floor. "The spell, do you really think they're cured?"  
  
"I really do," Clyde says. Butters kneels down beside him and lays his hand over Clyde's on the rag he's using.  
  
"Thank you," Butters says. "You saved us all."  
  
"No, I didn't."  
  
"Clyde, you did so! Now are you gonna put me over that table or take me back to my bed?"  
  
Clyde chooses the bed, and Butters is glad for it, because his orgasm is exhaustively comprehensive, as if every inch of his body has climaxed in one way or another. He's a useless puddle afterward, unable to do much more than smile when Clyde cradles him and praises his performance, though all Butters did was open his legs and shout encouragement. He supposes he did do some pretty good kissing, at least. He's always considered himself a good kisser, a talent that was wasted on Eric.  
  
Arrangements are made for Eric's arrest by the kingdom of East Orange, but he proves to be too obnoxious and loud as a human prisoner, so Clyde turns him into tortoise before nightfall.  
  
"I was going for a rabbit," Clyde says.  
  
"This is better!" Kyle says, laughing with glee.  
  
The following morning, Prince Stan and Consort Kyle leave for their kingdom, promising to spread word of the inn along the road as they travel. They depart with the captive tortoise Eric, and within a week Butters is flooded with requests for reservations, the rumor that a pair of kindly wizards run the inn having attracted much interest. By the end of the year, Clyde and Butters are quite wealthy, and much more popular in town than ever before, though they mostly keep to the inn, preferring the company of their guests to the villagers who once shunned them.  
  
In East Orange, order is restored and Princess Shelly is banished to the Long Beach Barrier Island for her crimes against the Prince. Also banished is Eric, who turns back into a human shortly after his banishment, Clyde's magic not being particularly strong or lasting. There Eric lives out his days as Princess Shelly's reluctant husband, giving her six children who she leaves largely in his care, and it is said throughout the kingdom that this is a fitting punishment indeed.  
  
Kyle and Stan have children of their own, having discovered that the sex they had as rabbits somehow impregnated Kyle with a litter of four. Both are relieved when the babies are born human, though their children can jump exceptionally high and tend to prefer vegetables to roasted game or sweets.  
  
Perhaps due to this dietary penchant, Kyle and Stan's children are known throughout the land for their uncommonly excellent white teeth, something that Kyle never tires of casually mentioning at royal parties.

 

~the end~


	2. Even Cow Boys Get the Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Marsh family farm acquires a discounted ginger cow.

Stan's mother was the one who did the cow purchasing for the farm, and Stan's main chore was waking at dawn to do the milking. He was therefore half asleep when he entered the barn and came across the new cows, not expecting a fat cow, because those were quite expensive, or a red-haired one with sad eyes. He'd never seen a ginger cow before. He had also never heard a cow speak, but this one did as soon as Stan put his pail down.  
  
"Are you here to milk us?" the ginger cow asked. Stan stared at him in shock, then looked over at the fat one, who was chewing his cud.  
  
"You -- speak English?" Stan said.   
  
"You speak cow?" The ginger cow looked just as astonished as Stan felt.  
  
"Ha!" the fat one said. "He looks like the kind of hick who'd speak cow."   
  
"Well, it's not an insult to speak our language," the ginger cow said, and he glowered at the fat one.   
  
"I've never spoken to a cow before," Stan said, wondering if this was a dream.   
  
"We're special," the ginger cow said. "My name is Kyle. This is Eric. We were raised as humans until our milk came."  
  
"Oh." Stan clutched at his own chest instinctively, thankful that he had never woken up with milk oozing from it. He'd heard it could happen, but he'd never encountered a formerly human milk cow before. They were generally less expensive than the other kind, and required more maintenance. "Um, hello," Stan said. "I'm Stan. I'm the farmer."   
  
"No kidding!" Eric said. "Now get over here and get to work, my tits are aching."   
  
Stan's stomach tilted at the thought of milking someone -- something -- that could talk back to him as he worked. He shifted his eyes away from Eric and took a better look at Kyle, who was smaller and thinner, though he was soft enough to require a top to support his -- teats. Stan looked away again, blushing. Though he had a tail, a pair of little horns and floppy ears, Kyle's face was still very human, and sweet in a way that made Stan feel terribly for him. Once a boy started producing milk, he was sold off before his tail grew and his ears began to change, quickly and quietly if possible, lest he bring shame upon the family. It was thought to be a low class trait, breeding milk producers in an otherwise normal line of humans.  
  
"Ah, so," Stan said, putting his stool down near Eric, who had assumed the milking position, waiting on all fours. "Where were you guys before my mom bought you?"  
  
"We belonged to the McCormick family," Kyle said. He sat near Stan's stool, on his knees. "They lived near here before they lost their farm."  
  
"Yeah, I knew them," Stan said. That explained the ragged clothes that Eric and Kyle were dressed in. Stan was friends with the middle McCormick boy, who was a kind person and a hard worker, but his parents had managed the farm poorly until they lost it. Kyle was dressed in what Stan would guess was a pair of Carol McCormick's old shorts, frayed and a little too small. His top was just a couple of triangles of fabric with a string connecting them and tied around his back, another string around his neck providing inadequate support for his little tits.   
  
"What's the hold up?" Eric barks. "I'm leaking here!"  
  
"Sorry," Stan said, and then he frowned, because technically these cows were his property, and he should be the one giving the orders. He undid the strap around Eric's top and let his huge boobs swing free, feeling uncomfortable. Helpfully, Kyle passed him the pail.  
  
"Uh, thanks."  
  
"You're welcome," Kyle said. "Make sure you squeeze his hard. He'll complain, but that's what it takes to drain him."  
  
"Ey! That's not true!" Eric turned to look at Stan from over his shoulder. "Be careful, hick boy. I'm sensitive."  
  
Stan's face was on fire during the whole milking process, and Eric seemed to complain with every pinch, but Stan was determined to finish, because Kyle was watching. He realized it was absurd to want to impress one of his cows, even if he had been a boy once, but he was glad he was able to get through the milking process without puking from nerves. When he was empty, Eric slumped down and panted as if he'd just run up a hill.   
  
"He's a big baby," Kyle said.   
  
"Shut up, ginger!" Eric said, and then he seemed to fall asleep.   
  
"I got a lot of milk from him," Stan said, his face still burning. "I don't have to, uh. Do you."  
  
"Oh, please," Kyle said, looking very worried. "Just a little? I get sore if I'm not milked."  
  
"Ah. Okay."   
  
Something happened to Stan as he watched Kyle undo his top. He refused to classify it as arousal, but it was a little too much like that for him to fully deny. Kyle's tits were bouncy and cute, and they did look swollen in a needful way, both nipples glistening and ready to be milked.  
  
"Let me get a different pail," Stan said, because he didn't want to mix Kyle's milk with Eric's. When he returned with a fresh one, Kyle was on all fours near the stool, his top lying in the straw. His tail flicked nervously when he peeked at Stan. Carol, or maybe Kyle himself, had cut a hole in the back of the shorts to accommodate it. Cow boys were generally not allowed to roam around naked, and Stan wondered if they lost the use of their dicks when they changed.  
  
"Is everything okay?" Kyle asked, because Stan was frozen in the doorway of the cow stall.  
  
"Ah -- yeah. Yep, fine. Let's, uh. Get to it."  
  
He sat down on the stool, his hands shaking, his anxiety not unlike that which overtook him when he tried to kiss the girl from down the road, Wendy. He hadn't succeeded many times in the past two years. Now she'd moved on to some other suitor, and was rumored to satisfy her cravings for intimacy with Kenny McCormick in the meantime. Stan hadn't ever asked Kenny about it. He really didn't want to know.  
  
"Ah," Kyle said when Stan pinched his right nipple, squeezing gently. "Yes, thank you." Kyle's eyes had fallen shut. "No one has milked me since the McCormicks lost their farm." His voice had a slight tremble to it while Stan continued to milk him, and Stan wasn't sure if it was pleasure or pain, possibly both. He was beginning to get an erection, worringly.  
  
"That's a long time not to be milked." Stan was embarrassed to hear that his own voice was shaking a bit, too. Kyle moaned softly and nodded.   
  
"That feels so good," he said. "Thank you."   
  
"Who, uh. Who did the milking on you guys over there?"  
  
"The oldest brother. He wasn't very careful with us. I tease Eric for it, but he could be a bit rough. Sometimes Eric even cried."  
  
"He nearly cried when I did it."   
  
"Well, he's a baby, like I said. He never wanted to be a cow."   
  
Stan thought of asking if Kyle had wanted that, but of course he hadn't. He withheld the stupid question and went on with the milking, soothing a hand over Kyle's back if he seemed to have tweaked him too hard.  
  
"I'll get better at being milked if you keep me on a schedule," Kyle said, and Stan thought his suggestion was a bit presumptuous, though also cute.  
  
"You're doing fine," Stan said. Kyle's milk was thinner than Cartman's, and smelled sweeter. "All done?" Stan asked when Kyle's ears began to twitch.   
  
"Nnh, yes. Although -- you could get the other milk if you want."  
  
"The other milk?"  
  
"Yeah." Kyle sat back onto his knees, and Stan's dick pulsed with renewed interest when he saw how red and worked-on Kyle's nipples were, slightly swollen. Kyle spread his knees a little, and Stan saw that something else was swollen, inside his shorts. "It happens sometimes when the milking feels good," Kyle said, mumbling. His face had colored. "Kevin didn't like to pull the milk out there, but, ah. It hurts if it doesn't come out."   
  
"Wah--" Stan's head was spinning, his eyes glued to Kyle's crotch. "That's -- milk?"  
  
"Yes," Kyle said. He sounded glum, and when his hands twitched on his thighs Stan wondered if he was struggling not to touch himself. "I know it's something else on the boys who don't change. A lot comes out, sometimes, and -- and I think it tastes pretty good! You could give it a try, if you want."  
  
Stan raised himself onto shaking legs, wondering how this could possibly be true. His own dick was feeling quite painfully full at the moment, and more so when Kyle peered up at him from the ground, his eyes big and trusting, knees still spread to accommodate the pressure inside his shorts.  
  
"Fuh -- I have to go," Stan said. "I'm sorry. Maybe later we can. Do that."  
  
He ran out of the barn with both milk pails, feeling guilty, as if he'd failed Kyle. But Kyle was only a cow! Stan wasn't going to stroke Kyle's dick for him, that was madness. He imagined Kyle back in the barn, sitting there tearfully with all that unspilt milk aching in his balls, his nipples still burning from Stan's work on them. Stan barely made it around the side of the house before whipping his cock out, and in two hard pulls he was coming with a groan, feeling insane.  
  
At the breakfast table, Stan was in a daze. His mother asked him what was wrong, but he couldn't begin to explain.  
  
"I know it's a bit eccentric to use cows like that here in the country," Sharon said. "But I've heard that in the city it's quite common! And I felt so badly for the McCormicks, I wanted to give them something without injuring their pride. The milk tastes fine, doesn't it?"  
  
"Fine," Stan agreed, his tongue feeling heavy when he spoke. He had poured the milk he'd gotten from Kyle into his own glass, greedily, and it was the best he'd ever had.  
  
He asked his mother about making new clothes for the cows, and she agreed that it was a good idea. Stan suggested that she make pants instead of shorts, thinking of Kyle's knees, which were raw from the hay.   
  
"Should I make them proper shirts?" Sharon asked. "Or is that too much like clothes for real people?"  
  
"I think it's too much, yeah," Stan said, not wanting Kyle's smooth stomach covered up, or his back, the delicate curve of his spine. "Just make them sturdy tops. Maybe -- maybe in the same fabric as a the pants. A cow hide pattern to match their ears. Ginger colored," he added, because it was Kyle's ears who he wanted matching the clothes, not Eric's, which were spotted with brown. Kyle's spots were a pretty red like his hair, in a slightly softer shade.  
  
"Stan's really into the cows all of a sudden," Shelly observed.   
  
"Why don't you go find a husband and stay out of my life?" Stan said, and everyone at the table startled at this rare outburst from him. He huffed angrily and left the table, wanting to jerk off again.  
  
That evening, Stan brought feed out to the barn for the cows. It was a corn meal pudding and some carrots, and Stan wished he could bring Kyle something better. In the barn, Kyle was sitting on a fence post and looking forlorn while Eric lay on his back on the ground, idly massaging his chest.   
  
"Dinner time," Stan announced, and he was glad when Kyle smiled at him. He set the bowls down and watched Eric hungrily devour his while Kyle licked up the pudding daintily, periodically cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
"I could bring you spoons?" Stan said uncertainly, feeling strange as he stood watching two former humans eat with their faces in their bowls.  
  
"Who needs a spoon?" Eric looked up from his bowl, his face covered with pudding. "This is easier."   
  
"It's fine," Kyle agreed.   
  
"What do you do all day?" Stan asked. "Don't you get bored?"  
  
"Don't you, farm boy?" Eric said. "Your life isn't so exciting."   
  
"Sometimes Kenny read to us," Kyle said.   
  
"I could do that." Stan wondered if they could read; probably, since the change took place at puberty and most boys were in school well before then. "Or I could leave you some books?"  
  
"That would be lovely!" Kyle said, and his eyes sparkled as if Stan had become lovelier himself for offering.  
  
"Books," Eric said, and he scoffed. "Kyle, you're such a freak cow."   
  
"I am not, you fat piece of shit!" Kyle seemed to instantly feel guilty for raising his voice in Stan's presence, and he sneaked a look at him. Stan just shrugged.   
  
"I'll bring books," he said. "And some good clothes, too."  
  
That night in bed, Stan wondered if it was warm enough in the barn. He'd left some old horse blankets out for the cows, but now that seemed cruel. He would bring them a real quilt in the morning, though his mother would be angry if she found it out in the barn, and Shelly would laugh at him.  
  
Over the next week, Stan found more and more excuses to linger in the barn. Where he once rose reluctantly at dawn to do his chores, now he sprang out of bed eager to get to the milking. Eric was still a difficult cow, whining when Stan milked him, but he produced enough for the family's breakfast and Sharon's baking needs. Kyle's milk was much less plentiful, but Stan didn't want anyone to know that. He loved it and usually drank it all himself, sometimes on the way back from the barn or immediately after his post-milking jerk off. Kyle continued to become erect during milkings -- or full, as he put it -- and though it was obvious in the tight cotton pants that he now wore, neither of them mentioned it. Finally, Stan couldn't take it anymore. He had to ask.  
  
"Can't you take care of that yourself?" Stan asked when Kyle sat back after his milking, slightly breathless and hard inside his pants. Stan was hard, too; Kyle must have begun to notice that touching Kyle's tits always made him stiff. Eric was asleep, exhausted as usual after his milking, and Kyle was looking confused by Stan's question. "The other milk," Stan said, nodding to Kyle's tented pants. "Can you get it out yourself, if it hurts to keep it, uh, in?"  
  
"What do you mean?" Kyle asked. He seemed wounded by the question, his ears drooping and shoulders lifting.   
  
"You have hands," Stan said. "You could touch it. Make it come."  
  
"Oh -- no, I tried that." Kyle sighed. "You know a cow can't milk itself. It's the same down there. If I touch it the pressure only gets worse, until I start to cry because it hurts so much."   
  
"God," Stan said, his heart breaking for Kyle. "Alright." He sighed and patted his knee, still on the stool. "Come over here. Let me get your milk out."  
  
"You don't have to," Kyle said, his tail swishing through the hay behind him.   
  
"Nonsense. You need taking care of, and you're mine to look after. Come here."  
  
Kyle smiled sheepishly and rose, moving a bit unsteadily, as the pressure between his legs had thrown him off balance. He sat where Stan indicated, on his lap, and Stan was surprised -- and delighted, guiltily -- by the cushiness of Kyle's ass. Kyle just sat there, and Stan realized he was waiting for him to the do unbuttoning.  
  
"Alright," Stan said quietly, praying that Eric would remain asleep. He could typically be counted on to sleep for upward of twenty hours a day, so it wasn't too concerning. "Let's just, ah. Take it out, here."   
  
Stan undid the three buttons on Kyle's pants, slowly, because his hands were shaking so much that unbuttoning was not easy. Kyle watched patiently, his breath coming in quick little puffs. He smelled like porridge and apples, which had been his dinner the night before, and like milk. His skin was like milk, Stan thought, his eyes lingering on the little roll of pudge at Kyle's stomach. He caressed Kyle there absently, and Kyle sighed, relaxing as Stan tucked his other arm around Kyle's back, supporting him.  
  
"Oh," Kyle said when Stan reached into his pants, and he spread his legs to give Stan better access. Stan was afraid of what he might find, and relieved when Kyle's dick looked much the same as his when it was hard, only Kyle's foreskin had been snipped away. Stan wondered if that was custom for a human who became a cow. Thinking of how painful it must have been to have a dick trimming, Stan moaned sadly and rubbed his thumb around Kyle's cockhead, which was leaking milk already. Kyle's breathing quickened and his head fell back, his hips twitching. Stan could see that he was restraining himself from begging, chewing his lip.   
  
"I can feel it, yeah," Stan said as his hand closed around Kyle's cock, which was bigger than he'd anticipated, about the size of his own. "You need to be milked here real bad, don't you?"  
  
"Yes, please!" The pitch of Kyle's voice would have been comical if he wasn't so sincerely desperate, near tears. "Stan--"   
  
Stan wasn't sure he'd heard Kyle say his name before then. He pumped Kyle gently at first, then harder, egged on by the pace of Kyle's breathing. It didn't take much: Kyle shouted when he came, and it didn't look like milk to Stan. It looked like the same thing that Stan wiped on his sheets after extended thinking about Kyle. There was more of it than Stan's usual output, and Kyle's orgasm seemed to last longer than his typically did. By the time Stan had milked the last of it from him he was sobbing, clutching at Stan's shoulders.  
  
"It's been so long," Kyle cried, and he put his wet face against Stan's neck. He was shaking all over, as if the aftershocks were still rattling through his bones. Stan shushed him, not wanting Eric to wake, and ran his hand over Kyle's back.   
  
"I won't make you wait that long again," Stan promised. He put his nose into Kyle's hair, which smelled mostly clean, though also like hay. "There, there," Stan said, stroking Kyle's ear. He shivered when he felt how soft it was, and Kyle held on to him more tightly, sniffling.   
  
"Why did this happen to me?" he said, and Stan was alarmed, afraid he shouldn't have reached into Kyle's pants after all. When Kyle sat back and looked at Stan glumly, Stan realized that he meant all of it: the milk, the ears, the tail. His transformation and his life as a cow.   
  
"It's not fair," Stan agreed. "But I'll take care of you now. It'll be alright." He lifted his hand and licked his fingers. "That ain't milk, though," he said, grinning to show Kyle that he didn't mind. It was sweeter than Stan's, in smell and taste, but it definitely had the consistency of come.  
  
"It's cream," Kyle said, somewhat defensively, and Stan withheld a laugh.  
  
"Alright," he said, tickling Kyle's back. "Cream, that's fine."   
  
"Yours is full, too," Kyle noted, placing his hand over Stan's erection.   
  
"You make it that way," Stan said, and his eyes burned from humiliation, but of course Kyle wouldn't laugh at him for being aroused by a milk cow, since Kyle was that milk cow.  
  
"Me?" Kyle seemed astonished. "But why?"  
  
"Because -- I don't know. You still look like a human to me. And I like the extra parts, actually." He touched the tip of one of Kyle's little horns, which wasn't sharp, and gently took hold of his tail with his other hand. Kyle gasped and flushed. "Sorry," Stan said, releasing his tail.  
  
"It's alright." Kyle's fingers were moving lightly over Stan's trapped erection, teasing him. "I've never seen a real man's thing," Kyle said, his eyes dropping down to Stan's crotch.   
  
"You want to?" Stan had to withhold nervous, inappropriate laughter.  
  
"Sort of," Kyle said, kneading Stan a bit. Stan bit down on a moan, not wanting to startle him. He was going to come soon anyway, from the weight of Kyle in his lap and the sight of that orgasm that had seemed like it might crack him in half with its intensity. "I suppose you could order me to handle it," Kyle said. "Seeing as you're my master."   
  
"Nah," Stan said, hurt by the idea. He hoped Kevin McCormick had never had it. "I expect you've been ordered around enough in your life. And technically, my dad's your master, since it's his farm."  
  
"Oh? Where is he?"   
  
"Working the fields all day. I hardly see him myself."  
  
"Mhmm." Kyle touched him more deliberately, and Stan tried to control his breathing, watching Kyle's hand on him. "Do you empty yours yourself?" Kyle asked, whispering. Stan nodded.  
  
"Thinking about you," he confessed. Kyle moved his face closer to Stan's, smiling, and for a moment Stan thought they might kiss.   
  
"What do you think about?" Kyle asked.  
  
"Ah. Um -- ahh, yeah -- I think about milking you. How you sigh and arch your back, and how you start to moan a little when you're almost done, when you're getting sore and hard in your pants--"  
  
Stan came with a grunt as soon as Kyle squeezed him wholeheartedly, rolling his palm onto Stan's cock. It was more happily disorienting than anything he'd felt under the power of his own hand, and he hugged Kyle to him again, feeling vulnerable. He peeked at Eric, who was still passed out.  
  
"Yours has gone sour," Kyle said, licking it off his fingertips.   
  
"That's 'cause it's, you know. Spunk."  
  
Kyle wrinkled his nose at the sound of that word, and Stan laughed. Impulsively, foolishly, he kissed Kyle's lips. They both peered at each other afterward, surprised that it had happened.   
  
"I'm a cow, remember?" Kyle said softly.   
  
"You feel like a person, though."  
  
Kyle's eyes filled up, and he blinked rapidly to keep the tears in.  
  
"Yes," he said, looking away from Stan. "That's true for me, too."  
  
Stan's heart was heavy when he left the barn for breakfast, bringing the pails of milk. He drank Kyle's himself as usual, but he felt wrong about it suddenly. What right did he have to Kyle's milk, or even to Eric's? They had been purchased, true, but the money went to their former owners, not to them.   
  
"What if I had turned into a cow?" Stan asked his mother after breakfast, when he was helping her with the dishes. He didn't usually, but he'd wanted to wait until Shelly was well out of earshot. Sharon gave him a wide-eyed look.  
  
"There's no need to worry about that, sweetheart," she said, touching Stan's arm. "You're almost seventeen, much too old to have the change."  
  
"I know. But what if? You and dad would have sold me off like a bale of hay?"  
  
"Honey." Sharon dried her hands and hugged him. "It was never going to happen, not to you. We don't have that in our blood."   
  
"Plenty of people think that until their kids start hiding milky shirts under their beds."   
  
"Stanley, what is this all about? You've been spending a lot of time in the barn. And I don't see why those cows need to read my books."   
  
"Never mind," Stan said, disappointed that she couldn't see things from his changing perspective. "I just feel bad for them, is all. They were like me, once."   
  
"Honey. You've always had such a soft spot for the animals. But it's best not to think too much about what their lives entail. They're not like us -- they're happy enough with simpler things. Here, take an apple out to the cows." She put one in his hand and patted his cheek, smiling. "My sweet boy," she said, and untied her apron, through with the conversation.  
  
"How old are you?" Stan asked Kyle that night, after he and Eric had finished their supper. Eric was licking his bowl, and Kyle was leaning against Stan's side, the two of them reclining against the pile of blankets in the corner of the stall. Hidden inside the rough horse blankets was a nice quilt that Kyle and Eric used in secret.   
  
"I'm sixteen, I think," Kyle said after a moment's hesitation. "But I'm not so good at keeping track of months and years anymore. No one tells me what day it is."   
  
"I'm sixteen, too," Stan said, and this made his chest ache, as if their shared age was further proof that they weren't so different.   
  
"I thought you were older!" Kyle seemed delighted by this news himself, and he hugged Stan's arm. "I guess because you're so strong," he said, giving his bicep a squeeze.   
  
"Quit fondling each other over there," Eric said, wiping his face with his meaty arm. "It's unnatural."   
  
"Oh, shut up," Kyle said. "You just wish you had someone important like Stan to cuddle you."   
  
"Important! Ha! Keep telling yourself that, you delusional heifer."   
  
Stan considered for the first time that Kyle and Eric shared that quilt, and therefore probably slept very close together, if not wrapped around each other to fight the cold. The jealous anger that followed was distressing for a number of reasons.  
  
"I could sneak you into my bed," he said, whispering this into Kyle's ear. Kyle just laughed.  
  
"You're getting carried away," he whispered back. "Be careful, Stan. I don't want to lose you."   
  
"Lose me? How could you?"  
  
Kyle just shook his head and clung to Stan's arm more tightly, resting his chin on Stan's shoulder.  
  
Things went on this way as the season matured and the days grew colder. Stan would milk Eric first each morning, and would drape a horse blanket over him after he'd passed out. Then came Kyle's milking, then some time spent wrapped up in that quilt with him, taking care of his other needs. Stan's, too, were fulfilled by Kyle, first in his hand and then his mouth, which Stan thought had to be the greatest physical heaven that could be known on earth, at least until Kyle drew Stan's fingers around to his backside one day and murmured that Stan could be inside there, if he wanted.   
  
"It's something I've thought of," Kyle said, trying to keep his tone very scientific while his face went red. "What it would be like to be -- so full, while you milked me. You could reach around, you see, and milk me into the pail, then milk my cream, and I'd be full of you all that time, and that -- that seems wonderful to me." He swallowed heavily when he was finished. Recently spent from having shot into Kyle's mouth, Stan's cock was filling up again as he tried to envision what Kyle had described.   
  
"Yes," he said when he found his voice. "But not here, on the floor of the barn. In my bed."   
  
"Oh, no, Stan, not there!"  
  
"Why not? You'd be more comfortable."  
  
"Certainly, but then I wouldn't be able to bear leaving. No, I can never know what it's like to be warm in bed with you, please. It would break my heart completely to know that and then leave it behind for the barn."  
  
Stan had to swallow down a crazy, half-formed outburst about running away together. It was so hard to leave Kyle in the barn, and harder every night as the temperature dropped.   
  
"What about Eric?" Stan asked, focusing instead on his stupid jealousy. "Does his blubber keep you warm in here?"  
  
"He smells like cheese," Kyle said miserably, and Stan hugged him, feeling bad for having asked.   
  
"I just want to be the one who makes you all cozy and such at night," Stan said. "The stuff we do in here is great, but it's like I'm missing the other half."  
  
"Well, that's the half of me that's not human, Stan, so it'll always be that way. Let's not fret. Did you -- you said you liked the idea of filling me up from behind while you milk me?"  
  
"Yes, very much," Stan said hurriedly and Kyle grinned.  
  
"Tomorrow," he whispered. "Let's try it."  
  
The next morning was a frigid one, and Stan woke well before daybreak, feeling nervous. He'd never even touched Kyle below his tail, and he didn't want to hurt him. Sometimes he felt guilty even milking him, when Kyle would twitch uncomfortably after a bad pinch or just too much stimulation. Stan really wanted to suck the milk directly from Kyle's teats, because he felt that would be more gentle and intimate, but he supposed it would also be obscene.   
  
What he was contemplating on his way to the barn was also obscene, and yet Kyle had asked for it, and Stan wanted to give it. He'd brought a tin of lamp oil, at Kyle's direction, and he had a small apple in his pocket for afterward. Kyle would need special tending, he felt, after this.  
  
When he reached the barn he found Kyle and Eric still huddled under their blankets, though Kyle sat up and smiled at the first sound of Stan's footsteps. He was wearing an old sweater of Stan's that Stan had given him when the weather worsened.   
  
"Maybe it's too chilly for our -- plan, today," Stan said, setting down the oil beside his lamp.   
  
"No, it will be fine," Kyle said. Eric sat up and peered at Stan groggily.   
  
"Make it quick," he said as he heaved himself up from the blankets. "I want to get back in bed. It's so goddamn cold, my milk's gonna come out as ice cream."  
  
"Let's hope not," Stan said, thinking of Kyle's 'cream.' He was glad to get Eric's milking over with quickly, though Eric of course complained that Stan was being careless with his sensitive nipples. He slumped back into the blankets when Stan was done, and Kyle took his place beside the stool. Stan rested his hand on Kyle's back when he was on all fours, and felt that he was trembling.  
  
"Are you cold?" Stan asked, rubbing Kyle's left ear, then his right. It had become his custom, pre-milking.   
  
"I'm okay," Kyle says. "This sweater smells like you -- that makes it extra warm, I think."   
  
"Oh, Kyle." Stan bent down to kiss the back of Kyle's neck, his hand sliding up under the sweater to caress Kyle's back. "Sorry," he said when Kyle hissed from the temperature of Stan's palm.   
  
"It's alright," Kyle said, and he took the sweater off, resuming the position as Stan unfastened his top. "I'll be plenty warm when you're inside, filling me up."   
  
"How do you know?" Stan asked, wondering if he'd tried it before.   
  
"Because, well. I guess I don't know, but I think that'll be the case!"  
  
Stan thought so, too, but he didn't know where to start. He moved to kneel behind Kyle and unfastened his pants, glancing at the mound of blankets. Eric hadn't caught them yet, but he seemed to know that they were fooling around, and didn't approve. Stan slid Kyle's pants down, exposing his ass and freeing his cock, which was already stiffening, despite the cold. Stan's was, too, though he wasn't all the way there yet. He pushed his shirt up and leaned over Kyle, pressing his bare chest to Kyle's back. They both sighed at the contact, and Stan's cock responded when Kyle flexed against him invitingly.  
  
"I can't even say I wish you weren't a cow," Stan said, rubbing his hands together to warm them before he went for Kyle's teats. "I love how you are. I just wish -- well, you know what I wish."   
  
"Put it in," Kyle said, sounding like he would cry. "Before you start milking."   
  
"Ah. Do I loosen you up first or what?"  
  
"No -- it's fine. Just push in slow, I think."  
  
Stan grabbed the oil. His heart was beating crazily, like a thing that wanted to be freed from its cage. He coated a couple of fingers and got Kyle slick, unable to resist feeling him a bit. Kyle sighed and pressed back. Upon cursory examination, Stan was afraid Kyle was much too tight and small for anything bigger than a finger or two, but he didn't want to deny Kyle what he wanted. He held his breath as he rubbed the oil over himself.   
  
"Ready?" he asked.  
  
"Please," Kyle said in answer, his voice cracking.  
  
Stan moved forward uncertainly and slid up along Kyle's crack, then tried again, this time slipping down under Kyle's balls. Kyle whined in frustration; Stan was afraid he'd used too much oil. He held Kyle open a little, with two fingers, and nuzzled the head of his dick into place before pressing forward again. This time, he popped inside, and Kyle shouted in unmistakable pain.   
  
"I'll stop," Stan said, afraid to move. Kyle cried out again and shook his head hard.   
  
"Keep going!" he said, hissing this in a whisper, and only then did Stan remember Eric, but he was motionless under the horse blankets. "It's -- it's just a lot of pressure. Good, though, it's good. Please."  
  
Stan had been too terrified of hurt Kyle to let the feeling register at first, but it sunk into him as he pressed in deeper, half an inch at a time. It was incredibly warm, and the feeling seemed to coat his skin, pulsing outward from his throbbing balls. He lost the ability to think clearly, the pleasure of sliding into Kyle blanking away everything but the dull knowledge that the pounding between his ears was his heartbeat. Kyle was whimpering softly, and Stan bent down to kiss his shoulders.   
  
"Are you alright?" Stan asked. "I could stay here, you know, I don't have to go in all the way." Every inch of his dick that wasn't yet contained in Kyle seemed to wail in protest, but he meant it.  
  
"I need it all the way!" Kyle said. "I think this is something cow boys need. Yes, I'm sure of it. I was d-designed to have this in me."  
  
"This? Mine, specifically?"  
  
"Yes, yours, unnnnh."  
  
Stan had never heard Kyle call himself a 'cow boy' before, as opposed to just a cow. He felt good about that, as if having Stan inside him had reminded Kyle starkly that he was human after all. Kyle seemed as if he was finally experiencing at least a little of the pleasure that Stan felt as Stan slipped all the way into him, his balls resting against Kyle's split-open ass. They were both panting, sweating. Stan reached for Kyle's tits, squeezing lightly. Kyle groaned and tightened up around Stan for one excruciatingly pleasurable pulse.   
  
The pail was in place below Kyle's chest. Stan pulled down on the left tit, and Kyle whined softly as a squirt of milk hit the pail. Stan let out a breath he'd been inadvertently holding. He milked the other tit with the same slow finesse, then back to the left one, alternating. Kyle's breath was stuttering out, and he kept doing that squeezing thing around Stan's cock with every downward stroke of Stan's hand on his teats.  
  
It was fucking magnificent, and Stan never wanted it to end.  
  
"Is it good?" he whispered, though by then he could feel how much Kyle was enjoying it, too, because they were so completely connected. Kyle nodded slowly, his thighs twitching inside Stan's.   
  
"It's so -- full, Stan, it's like -- like when I need to be milked so badly that I'm afraid I'll burst, and I hear you walking up the path to the barn, and I know you're going to come and give me what I need. It's like that, the good full."   
  
Stan hardly knew what Kyle meant, but he nodded, moving his hips back a little and then forward again. They both gasped. He did it again, squeezing both of Kyle's teats into his hands, pulling the milk out as he sunk back in. Kyle groaned in a throaty way that Stan had never heard before, and Stan didn't even care now if Eric woke. He wouldn't stop this for anything.  
  
He reached for Kyle's cock, leaving his other hand on Kyle's chest, thumbing nipples and starting to lose his rhythm as the pace of his thrusts picked up. Kyle grunted manfully when Stan took hold of his cock, and Stan liked it. He answered with a grunt of his own, snapping his hips harder. There was milk leaking all over his hand, and he smeared it around on Kyle's chest while he fucked him -- truly fucked him, balls slapping and dick pounding while Kyle growled encouragement. He took Stan's hand from his chest and brought Stan's fingers to his mouth to taste his own milk on them. Stan couldn't hold back anymore: he unloaded into Kyle with a scream, barely holding himself up long enough to keep from pressing Kyle down onto the milk pail. He tipped over onto his side to avoid it, still inside Kyle, and curled around him from behind. Kyle's cream was all over his hand. Stan wasn't even sure when that had happened. His other hand was still partly in Kyle's mouth, and Kyle was sucking on his fingers, humming contentedly around them.  
  
"I never want to leave you," Stan said, already beginning to feel the cold creep back in.   
  
"We should do this every time you milk me," Kyle said, presumably as a consolation, because of course Stan would have to leave him. Stan pulled out of him slowly, moaning with residual pleasure as he watched his seed spill from Kyle's ass, which was reddened as if it had been slapped, and Stan supposed it had. He groped for the discarded sweater and handed it to Kyle. Before he could go for the quilt, Kyle pulled him down into a deep kiss. Stan had only allowed himself to peck Kyle's lips before, because something about it seemed too great a boundary to cross, but now that he had been inside Kyle he did not hesitate to plunder his mouth as well, pushing his tongue in to meet the caress of Kyle's. Kyle tasted like his own milk: wonderful, sweet, and perfectly suited to Stan's thirst.  
  
There was a clanging sound from the door of the barn, and Stan looked up with alarm. He froze in place when he saw his father standing there, clearly aghast at what he was seeing. Randy was holding a shovel, and for a moment Stan feared that his father would kill him with it. He moved in front of Kyle protectively, not sure what he could possibly say about what had obviously just happened.   
  
"My own son," Randy said after a long moment of disbelieving silence, his eyes hardening. "Rutting a goddamn cow!"   
  
"He's a human, Dad!" Stan knew this wouldn't fly, but he was angry and had to say it. "He grew up just like me, he can read and talk and think--"  
  
"Get up!" Randy roared. "Before someone sees you. You'd better be glad it was me and not one of the day laborers who came to see what all the shouting up here was about. I think I'm going to be sick!"   
  
Stan turned to Kyle. He was scrambling into the sweater, his face white with terror. Eric was peeking from beneath the blankets, not daring to make a smart ass remark now.   
  
"You don't understand!" Stan said, wincing when he heard how petulant and childish he would sound to his father.   
  
"Out, you little bastard!" Randy pointed to the door while Stan fumbled to fasten his pants. "I'll deal with you later."   
  
"You can't hurt him," Stan said.   
  
"Hurt who?" Randy snarled. "That animal? Why would I? There's no point in beating a cow. They're too stupid to take a lesson from it. I'm going back to the fields to tell the men that godawful noise was only the cows fucking each other, and when I return to the house you had better be there. Not a word of this to your mother. She would die of a broken heart if she knew you were this perverse!"  
  
Stan threw his coat on and headed for the door, not daring another glance at Kyle. Better his father think that he was only trying to pump an orgasm into something warm and tight than realize he loved Kyle. It would be safer for Kyle if Randy assumed he was just some dumb animal who was unlucky enough to meet with Stan's perverted cock.  
  
Down at the house, Stan was shaken. He felt dirty, but also it seemed like taking a shower would be an admission that his father was right. While Stan was inside Kyle he'd been so sure that everything between them was pure and loving, even perfect, but now his mind was spinning. He kept an eye on the fields, watching his father work from a distance, making sure that he'd been telling the truth about not hurting Kyle. It was true that, in Randy's view, there would be no point in punishing a dumb beast, and that doing so would only result in a devaluation of his own property.  
  
Stan waited in his bedroom, unable to concentrate on anything until he heard his father's boots in the foyer. His heart had been beating hard for hours, and now it was slamming, though he wasn't sure what he was afraid of. His father had never hit him, and now Stan was essentially a grown man himself.   
  
Randy came into the room with a glass and a bottle of whiskey, and it was clear that he'd already had at least one drink out in the kitchen. He set the glass on Stan's bedside table and filled it.   
  
"Drink," he said, and Stan did, eager to be obedient after what had happened earlier.  
  
"Dad," Stan said, the liquor burning all the way down. "I don't--"  
  
"Quiet," Randy said. "Listen, boy. We all have urges. Yours I thought were more in the direction of girls, but such things aren't always mutually exclusive. I'm not gonna say I never thought about mounting a cow who used to be human. There's a particular allure, I'll admit. That's why I got so cross with you earlier. Saw some of myself in that vulgar display. That's why I want you to have this." He reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a stack of bills.   
  
"What's this for?" Stan asked, pretty sure he'd never seen so much money in his life.  
  
"There's a hotel in town," Randy says. "The Red Tassel. Go there, ask for the best they've got. That'll turn you around. Worked for me."   
  
"Okay," Stan said, his stomach churning at the thought of a whore house -- the smell, the caked on makeup, the thought of all who had come before him. But there was no point in telling Randy that he planned to use the money elsewhere. "Uh, thanks, Dad."  
  
"Don't say I never did anything for you." Randy winked and tapped Stan's chin. "You may be a cow fucker, but you're still my boy."  
  
That night, Randy asked Stan to come play cards with him and instructed Shelly to make sure the cows got fed. Stan's stomach dropped, but he couldn't fight the arrangement. At least he would be able to milk Kyle in the morning, and now that he had some money, maybe they could come up with a plan to go away together. It was a long shot, but he was already desperately missing Kyle, wishing they'd had more time to nuzzle into each other's warmth and kiss after their first time.  
  
Stan slept poorly and had bad dreams about whores with clownish makeup who pulled off his clothes. An hour before he normally woke, he decided to get a head start on his chores. He still had the little apple he'd planned to give to Kyle after their love making, and he touched it in his pocket on the way to the barn.   
  
When he arrived, the blankets were piled up as usual, but Kyle didn't sit up to greet him. Stan thought he might be scared to find someone else had come for his milking after the unexpected arrival of Shelly with his dinner the night before. He went over to the blankets and gently shook the pile. What he felt beneath had to be Eric's shoulder, large and meaty.   
  
"Wake up," Stan whispered. "Kyle?"  
  
Eric peeked from beneath the blankets, looking frightened. He was shivering as if he was cold.   
  
"Kyle's gone," he said.   
  
"Huh?" Stan started tearing through the blankets, determined to find him. "What? No -- what do you mean?"  
  
"Your mom took him last night after dinner, to sell him. Are they going to sell me, too? I don't want to leave! I like it here, you let me sleep all the time--"  
  
"Where did she bring him for the sale?" Stan asked, trying to remain calm. He'd find Kyle at once and buy him back with the money his father had given him for a whore. After that, he had no idea what would become of them, but for now nothing mattered but reclaiming Kyle, who could be in any manner of the wrong hands. "Did she sell him at the town market?" Stan asked, shaking Eric. "Answer me!"  
  
"I don't know! She didn't speak to me, just took him away on a leash! Kyle didn't say anything, he was too afraid to talk. He didn't even say goodbye!" Eric started wailing, and Stan released him, hurrying out of the barn in a panic. There was no time to comfort the fat cow; Stan was surprised that Eric wasn't simply rejoicing in being able to eat Kyle's share of dinner from now on, but he supposed the two had been together since they were first sold.   
  
Stan burst into the house, then told himself to cloak his distress. His mother didn't know about what Randy had seen in the barn, and this would be to Stan's advantage in gathering information about where Kyle was sold. But where would they go once Stan had gotten him back? He pushed the thought aside and smoothed his hair, approaching his mother as she made her morning coffee.  
  
"Finished with the cows already?" she said. "You're usually up there until Shelly and I are nearly done with breakfast."   
  
"Well, there's only the one now," Stan said, wishing he could suppress the angry flush on his cheeks. "So there's less to do. Dad asked you to sell Ky-- the other one?"  
  
"Yes, he said that you'd told him that ginger one wasn't producing much. It does seem like we only need the one, when I think of it. Carol said those two were a set, sort of like brothers, that they'd been sold together as boys, but your father said we needed the money more than we needed to honor Carol McCormick's sentimental feelings about some cows, and of course he's right."   
  
"How much did you get for it?" Stan asked, hating to refer to Kyle as 'it,' though it was necessary at the moment.  
  
"Just twenty dollars I'm afraid."  
  
Stan swallowed down what may have been a despairing cry. Randy had given him fifty for one afternoon with a whore, but someone was only willing to part with twenty for Kyle, his poor little Kyle.   
  
"Did you sell him at market?" Stan asked.   
  
"I was planning to, but a traveler stopped me on the road and asked me if I would give him up for twenty dollars. It was less than I wanted, but it saved me half a day's journey to the market. Would you like some sausage with your eggs this morning?"  
  
"I have to go," Stan said, his hands in fists. He was afraid he would shout at his mother if he stayed, shake her and demand to know more about this traveler. If he got on the road toward the market, he might catch up with the man.   
  
"Where are you going?" Sharon asked.  
  
"Dad needs help in the field this morning."  
  
"Oh, good. I was hoping you'd graduate to field hand soon. Shelly can take care of the animals."   
  
Stan left the house, his vision tunneling and his nerves in tatters. As soon as he'd left the yard he began to run, his eyes burning against the stinging cold wind. Some traveler; a stranger without the proper paperwork, a vagabond who might want Kyle as a living surgical experiment. Stan's mother had passed a leash connected to the love of Stan's life to this person. There were plenty who did unsavory things to boys who had become cows. Stan had done some reading on this since falling in love with Kyle. It had sickened him, just imagining that anyone could so callously hurt someone like Kyle, and now he had no way of knowing if his worst imaginings were coming true.   
  
He reached the market without encountering any travelers on the road, save for a pair of milk maids who said they'd seen no ginger cow or caravan that might conceal one. Once he was in the market he questioned everyone he encountered, knowing he sounded mad because they were looking at him as if he was. He begged and promised money for any information, but no one knew a thing about the ginger cow.  
  
"I don't think cows can be ginger," one old man said, frowning at him. Stan had to restrain himself from shouting and shaking the old bastard, from saying that he had known one well enough to cherish the memory of being welcomed inside him.  
  
Night fell, and Stan was still in town, chasing after merchants as they packed up their market stalls for the day. He couldn't go home while Kyle was at large, possibly in danger. He walked on, out of town and farther from home than he'd ever been, so tired that at some points he hallucinated the lights of a caravan up ahead. When he ran to catch up with it his vision would fade. Finally he slept in a well house that provided shelter from the wind outside but little protection against the cold. He curled in upon himself, imagining the many nights Kyle had endured in the barn with only a few blankets and that sweater to keep him warm, and wept with regret. He should have run away with Kyle as soon as they met; Stan had felt certain about him even then, though he'd denied it for as long as he could.  
  
His search took weeks, and by the time he finally heard a rumor of a ginger cow in a farm far from his own he had spent nearly all of his father's fifty dollars just staying alive on meager food and the occasional wasted bribe that turned up no real information. Stan was unshaven, exhausted, and weather beaten as he approached the farm where he feared the tip he'd paid for would again prove to be an opportunistic lie.   
  
Stan approached the farm under cover of night. He had less than four dollars remaining, and he knew no one would take that for a cow, especially for one he had recently paid twenty for. He didn't want to buy Kyle, anyway; the very idea had become insulting and enraging to him. He wanted to liberate his love, and prayed that he would find Kyle safe as he approached the stranger's large barn.   
  
There were many cows inside, divided into two sections: those who had always been cows, lumbering and covered with hair, and those who had once been human, still fleshy and possessing of only tails, ears and horns that distinguished them from those who would always be human. There were ten such creatures in the corral across from the more traditional cows, and Stan spotted Kyle quickly, his heart sinking when he saw that Kyle was curled into a lifeless ball on the dirt floor, his pants filthy and ripped in two places, Stan's sweater gone. Kyle was in fact entirely topless, as were all the cow boys in the corral, most of them slumped into defeated postures like Kyle's.  
  
Stan knew he had to be careful; other cows might shout at the appearance of an intruder. He waited until the entire herd seemed to be asleep before slipping into the enclosure, his stomach threatening to evacuate the small amount of food he'd eaten that day. The smell in this barn was not good: dirty, neglected, and inhumane.  
  
"Kyle?" Stan whispered, his voice already shaking. Fear that Kyle was dead or dying snapped Stan like a closing noose, but Stan could see him breathing, and he had to believe that nothing had happened to Kyle which he couldn't heal. He didn't want to scare Kyle and make him cry out, so he stayed back and whispered again: "Kyle, darling?"  
  
Kyle twitched and turned his cheek slightly. Stan whimpered with buried rage when he saw that Kyle had a bruise on his cheek. Hearing that anguished sound, Kyle rolled onto his back. His face pinched up with tears when he saw Stan.  
  
"Is it a dream?" he asked.  
  
"No, Kyle, oh—" Stan knelt down and gathered Kyle against him gently, fearing other injuries. "Oh, my little – what have they done to you?" A quick glance at Kyle's chest made Stan's stomach clench: there were bruises there, too, not as dark but circled around Kyle's nipples in a way that signified careless over-milking.   
  
"I kept forgetting that I was not allowed to talk," Kyle said when Stan leaned back to brush careful fingertips over the bruise on his cheek. Kyle's eyes filled up. "They won't take me back, will they? Your parents?"  
  
"To hell with them. I'm taking you away from here, right now." He pulled off his coat and wrapped it around Kyle before hugging him close again.  
  
"Stan." Kyle's voice was soft and hopeful but frightened, too. He threw his arms around Stan's neck and cried a little, quietly, his tears warm on Stan's skin. "How, though? Where?"  
  
"I don't care. We'll find a place." Stan thought of his nearly empty pockets, and imagined his father's fury if he should return home after weeks of neglecting the farm, his illicit cow lover trailing behind him. "We'll find a way," he said, praying that it could be true.  
  
They slipped away easily enough; cows were not a heavily guarded commodity. Once they were safely in the nearby woods, Stan helped Kyle drink from his canteen and fed him a cinnamon twist that he'd bought when he heard rumor of a ginger cow, hoping that he would be able to give Kyle this treat when they were reunited. The sugar lingered on Kyle's cracked lips and made him weep.  
  
"It's been so long since I've eaten something like this," he said, his voice weak and shaking from the cold that closed around them. "It makes me feel like a real boy."  
  
"You are one, Kyle. Having these abilities doesn't make you inhuman, and soon you'll be not just a boy but a man – both of us will. I want us to be men together, god, I would do anything to have that."  
  
"Sweet fool," Kyle cried, and he buried his face against Stan's neck. "However long I live, I'll die happy for having heard your wishes for us."  
  
They survived the night, and Stan woke with blue lips, so cold that his skin felt brittle, as if it was coated in a layer of frost. Kyle looked worse off, skinnier than normal and stumbling in his steps as they left the woods.  
  
"Which way should we go?" Kyle asked, stuttering from the chill even with Stan's coat wrapped around him. He kept falling against Stan's side as if he wanted to cling to him while walking, but they were conspicuous enough already. Stan had never imagined that he would think of Kyle's beautifully distinct hair as a liability.  
  
"We'll walk north," Stan said, deciding so arbitrarily. He simply wanted to get far from the farm of this stranger who had hit Kyle's face because he didn't want to hear him speak.   
  
It was half a day's journey along the unforgiving road before Stan saw something he recognized: the McCormick boy, Kenny, selling turnips from a makeshift cart.   
  
"Hey there!" Kenny said, in oddly good spirits for someone whose family had lost their farm. "It's good to see you again!" He embraced Stan, then saw Kyle and hugged him just as warmly. "My old buddy!" Kenny said, holding Kyle out at arm's length. "I was worried about you. They sold you to Stan?"  
  
"Yes," Kyle said, and he smiled weakly, in a way that made Stan want to catch him, though he wasn't yet collapsing. "And what has become of you, Master Kenny?"  
  
"Master Kenny!" Kenny looked at Stan and scoffed. "What's become of me is that I'm a vagrant, but I'm getting by. I'm with my sister, and my friend – Stan, you know Wendy – she's been supplying us with things when we need them. What are you two doing together on this road?"  
  
Stan explained, leaving out a few of the more lurid details. Kenny invited them back to the hovel that he'd constructed for himself and his sister in the months since the McCormick farm had gone under. It wasn't cozy, but there was a fire in a barrel for warmth, some raccoon meat for dinner, and the four walls of the hut sheltered them from the wind. Kyle's closeness made Stan feel as if he was in a palace after the weeks without him, wondering about his fate.   
  
"What now?" Stan asked, hugging his arm around Kyle and daring Kenny to say something like Randy had, that it was unnatural and unwelcome. "What will any of us do?"  
  
"I think we can work," Kenny said, so mildly that Stan felt badly for doubting that his friend would accept him. "Stan, you and I can get farm work, Karen could keep house, and even on our barest days I think we can count on our friend Kyle for milk to sustain us."   
  
Stan wanted to object to that, except for the fact that Kenny had called Kyle a friend and seemed to mean it. He looked down at Kyle, who was toying with a button on Stan's coat.  
  
"I'm not such a great producer, I'm afraid," Kyle said. "I wish I was, but – four people? I don't know if I can do enough for all of us."   
  
"You could," Stan said, truly believing this, "If you're properly cared for. Well fed, and. And you would be, with me. Here with us, I mean."  
  
He glanced up at Kenny and Karen, afraid to see them recoil, but both were smiling.  
  
"He's right," Karen said. "I think you could take care of all of us if we did our part, if we took care of you!"  
  
Kyle looked at Stan, who did his best to communicate that Kyle had nothing to fear. He was afraid for himself, for both of them, but also certain that he would give up every last penny and cinnamon twist to keep Kyle safe. Kyle pressed himself to Stan's side.  
  
"Just don't go," he said, and Stan promised that he wouldn't.  
  
Stan kept his promise, helping Kenny to raise the money to support their makeshift family. Karen kept the house with help from Kyle, who provided more than enough milk after he began eating better, like a real person, at the table with the others. He gained a bit of weight, and he tasted sweeter to Stan, who milked Kyle in their little hay-stuffed bed rather than a hay-filled barn.  
  
"I wish I could give you more," Stan said when they were confident enough in their new life to feel anything but worry that they would be captured. "You deserve more."  
  
"I know," Kyle said. He pulled at the collar of Stan's shirt. "I wish that, too. That I could give you more."  
  
"Kyle! You give me so much!"  
  
"Ah, do I?"  
  
"Of course. There have been days when I would have gone without anything to eat if it hadn't been for you, and that's only the barest of what you give me." He kissed Kyle's forehead. They were in their bed together, under a warm blanket that Stan had recently been able to purchase. The hay bed was still uncomfortable to him, but he had Kyle for comfort within it, and he slept well most nights.   
  
"Shall we get to it?" Kyle asked, reaching for the ceramic bowl they now used to collect his milk. Stan nodded and kissed him again, on the cheek this time.   
  
"Do you want--?" he asked murmuring this low, hoping Kyle would understand. He usually did. He smiled at Stan and nodded, reaching for the jug of lamp oil that they kept close to the bed.  
  
A curtain separated their section of the little tin house from Karen's room, and Kenny slept in what they'd designated as the front room, near the fire pit where they did their cooking. They were quiet during Kyle's milking, especially when they did it this way, with Kyle in Stan's lap, Stan inside him, the blanket draped over their legs to hide their connection. Kyle leaned back onto Stan, his back warm against Stan's chest. He sighed and moved his hips in little twitches while Stan milked him, his eyes closed and his head resting on Stan's shoulder. His bruises had long faded.   
  
"I think it tastes better when we do it this way," Stan whispered, and he stifled a moan when Kyle squeezed around his cock as if in agreement.   
  
"Mhmm," Kyle said, and he turned his face against Stan's neck. "I'm glad it's only you drinking it now." Since Kenny and Stan had been able to find work, Kyle's milk rarely came to the table.  
  
"Me too." Stan reached down to stroke Kyle under the blanket, clutching him more tightly when he squirmed and sighed. The bowl with the milk was beginning to tilt precariously as Kyle bounced harder on Stan's lap, and Stan set it aside. He usually drank it all up himself after they'd finished, then they would sleep a bit longer before rising to their chores. They were both still in the habit of doing this at dawn.   
  
There was one difference in the routine on this morning. After Kyle was asleep again, a satisfied bundle of milk-scented warmth curled into the curve of Stan's body, Stan lay awake for some time, stroking his ear. He had been contemplating writing to his parents to let them know if he was safe, and he decided this was the morning he would do it. He extracted himself from Kyle carefully, kissing the corner of Kyle's mouth when he moaned in his sleep, protesting the loss of contact. Stan found a pen and some paper and returned to bed, settling in beside Kyle to write.  
  
 _Dear Mom and Dad,  
  
I am sorry for not writing sooner, but I was not sure if you want would to hear from me. Now I think you must at least want to know that I am safe. In fact, I am, and living with friends in a town not far from the ocean. As you may have guessed, I am living in sin with Kyle, who you will remember as the ginger cow purchased from the McCormicks along with the fat one. Dad, I did not use your money to go to the Red Tassel as instructed. I was not merely looking for a bit of release when you found me in the barn that day. I was in love with Kyle then, I am in love with him now, and I will love him for the rest of my life. I love his tail, his ears, even his little horns. I love everything about his condition, but I would have loved him without it, too. It's not important, you see. He is so much more than his milk. I hope that someday you can come to understand this. Until then, I remain,  
  
Your humble son,  
Stan  
  
PS, Please tell the fat cow (Eric) that Kyle says hello. I hope you are still allowing him to sleep for most of the day. It is his nature, and I think we can at least agree that you get more and better milk from cows when they are happy._  
  
Stan sealed the letter and set it on the bedside table. He would give it to Kenny for mailing later. In the meantime, he curled back into position around Kyle and closed his eyes. Kyle's tail was twitching, pressed between Stan's chest and Kyle's back. Stan wondered if he was having a dream, and he kissed Kyle behind his floppy ear, hoping it was as good a dream as the happy one he had found himself living.


	3. The Boy in the Bundle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyle has been waiting anxiously for the season when he'll be matched and bundled with another boy from the village. Stan seems like his perfect match, until a thief named Kenny who lives in a tree complicates matters between them.

When the first snowflakes of the winter drift down over the rooftops of the village, Kyle watches them fall with nervous anticipation. Snow means that bundling season is upon them. He's sixteen this winter, and if he doesn't speak up soon he's going to be bundled with a girl. It's an awful thought, but also not as scary as the thought of being placed with a boy. He fantasizes about boys almost constantly, but the boys in his day dreams are sweet and gentle, with pretty eyes and good teeth. The actual boys in the village are nothing like that. They've always been cruel to Kyle, and they're predominantly awkward, with bad skin and worse breath. The thought of being placed in a bed with one of them and forced to listen to his vile fantasies about what he will do to Kyle when they are unwrapped is the stuff of his nightmares. 

Still, it could be his only chance to be matched with someone he might actually grow to desire, rather than a girl who will want him to pump her full of babies. He shudders at the thought and pulls his knees up to his chest, watching the snow come down harder. Some of the rowdier boys are out in the square, celebrating the change in the weather and what it signifies. They've been anticipating their bundling without fear, unlike Kyle.

At dinner that night, he struggles to work up his courage as his mother dominates the conversation as usual, discussing her efforts to finish making Kyle's wrappings. He'll be meeting with the matchmaker in the coming week, like the rest of eligible children in the village, and Sheila has plans to trim his curls, scrub him with milk, and buy him a new tailored coat. 

"Mother?" Kyle says, interrupting her. "May I make a request?"

"Of course, bubbeh. Are you thinking about the color of your coat? I was imagining you in plum, but if you have another preference--"

"It's just that I want you to put me in with the boys," Kyle says, rushing this out before he can lose his nerve. "That is. To be matched with one. Ike can give you grandchildren!" he blurts when his father looks up from his plate in surprise.

"Oh, Kyle." Sheila glances at Gerald. "We're not worried about that. It's just -- do you really think you'll be happy with a boy? You've never quite gotten along with them--"

"Sure I have," Kyle says, a pointless lie. "And anyway, won't other villages be submitting candidates?" 

"I suppose so," Sheila says. "But, well. These villages share our -- culture, Kyle, and the boys won't be so different." 

"They might be," Kyle says glumly, losing hope. 

"Are you sure you want to risk it?" Gerald asks. "What if they pair you with a bossy boy?"

"How's that different from a bossy girl?"

"He's afraid your match will beat you," Ike says. "As in, physically. Although, to be honest, a girl might manage that as well."

"Shut up! I want a boy." He says so firmly now, to his mother. "Won't you let me try for something I actually want?"

"I can't stop you." Sheila looks worried, and she keeps glancing at Gerald. "But -- oh, Kyle! It would break my heart if they matched you with some brute."

"The matchmaker wouldn't do that," Kyle says, uncertainly. "She's -- good, right?"

"Mom's worried that there's no one quite as delicate as you in the dating pool," Ike says, still snickering. "No one who wants to stick it to another boy, anyway." 

"I'll show you delicate!" Kyle roars, and he throttles Ike right out of his chair. Sheila shrieks and Gerald tells them to stop it at once as they roll across the floor. Kyle knows he should stop, but it feels good to attack something, Ike especially. Kyle is afraid he's right: most boys who pair with other boys do so because they want someone tough who can handle their manliness, body odors, and tendency to throw freshly killed game on the kitchen table, blood and all. Kyle knows a pair of matched men who are both lumberjacks, hairy and huge, and though he occasionally imagines being taken to bed by someone like that, in reality he knows he couldn't handle it. He's inherited his mother's intolerance of dirty boots, and would prefer that his future mate leave his at the door before entering their home. 

Kyle is banished to his bedroom for fighting with his brother, denied dessert. He curls into the blankets on his bed and mopes, wondering if there could possibly be a boy in any village on this earth who he would like to be bundled alongside. It's not as if he holds himself in such high regard that no one could measure up. He just doesn't want to be left alone in the dark with someone who might be cruel to him, or frightfully dull, or ugly.

On the morning of his meeting with the matchmaker, he wakes up early with a stomachache, Sheila already fluttering around his room in preparation. She pulls open the curtains and yanks Kyle out of bed, hustling him into the bathroom, where she's filled the tub with milk.

"It's fresh!" she says, as if Kyle is concerned about that, shivering while he strips off his pajamas. 

"Must you be in here for this?" Kyle asks. 

"Yes! Oh, Kyle, I'm not looking at you, just get in. I'll scrub your back, and I've got a special treatment for your hair, too. It's got to shine when we're done, and no frizz!"

Kyle sits in the milk, which is distressingly lukewarm and only comes up to his belly button. His mother has lit the fireplace near the bath, but it's just getting going and the room is still cold. Kyle shakes and cleans his front while she does his back, scrubbing so hard that he can feel flakes of skin coming off. 

"Gently on your face!" she says when he rubs a wash rag across it. Kyle moans and looks toward the supplies that she's set out for his hair: honey, artichoke paste, and a raw egg. 

"I'll stink," Kyle says when she mixes it all together. 

"Nonsense! There's a lavender rinse for after we wash this out. Boys love the smell of lavender." 

"Did you undertake this ritual when the matcher met with you?"

"Oh, yes, something like it, but less advanced! This is the latest formula, very highly recommended."

"And were you frightened?" Kyle asks, looking down at his trembling, milky fingers. 

"Of course, of course, but in a matter of days I was being placed into the bundle bed with your father, and it was the happiest moment of my life! I thought him so handsome, so kind -- Kyle, are you sure you don't want a girl? You could make a little wife so happy." 

"But what about me? Would you have accepted a girl rather than a boy, because you might have made her happy?"

"I see your point," Sheila says, her nails digging into Kyle's scalp as she applies the foul smelling egg mixture. "And if you've made up your mind, that's that! We'll ask for a nice boy, like your father."

"Not like him," Kyle says, moaning, because his father, while nice, is strange and embarrassing. Sheila smacks his shoulder and gets back to scrubbing his hair.

When Kyle has been thoroughly cleaned and rinsed in lavender, Sheila powders him all over and brings the clothes she's selected for this important day: new underthings, his best white shirt with silver buttons, and close fitting wool pants in a dark olive shade. The new plum colored coat completes the ensemble, and Kyle feels incredibly ridiculous as Sheila adds a fat striped tie around the collar of his shirt. 

"I look like some kind of frog at a tea party," Kyle says when she brings him over to the mirror. Sheila snorts.

"What on earth do you mean? You look beautiful. Look at your hair!" She fluffs it, then spritzes it with more lavender. "Put these on," she says, thrusting a pair of his father's black silk stockings into his hand, recently laundered. "Ike is polishing your boots. We're nearly ready -- it's so exciting!" Sheila seems to want to kiss and embrace him but holds back, not wanting to wrinkle anything.

Ike remains at the house while Kyle journeys to the matchmaker's residence with his parents, as is tradition. The matchmaker lives in the woods, like all dependable witches, and as their horse-drawn carriage bumps along over the unpaved, root-strewn woodland roads Kyle wonders if he'll lose his breakfast, which was a modest bowl of cream and winter berries, spoon fed to him very carefully by his mother, lest he spill anything on his clothes. 

"Look, we're one of the first ones here!" Sheila says when they arrive at the clearing where the matchmaker's cottage sits, exuding the warmth and light that signifies a good witch within. It's small but inviting, with purplish roof shingles and a set of ornately carved wooden doors, the snow cleared from the narrow front porch. 

"Only two carriages parked out front, so we'll be the third to see her,” Sheila says, and Kyle silently laments that the other carriages look finer than theirs -- the horses, too. “That's perfect -- she'll have warmed up but not yet tired. Oh, wonderful timing, Gerald, dear, well done!" 

"It was you who orchestrated our schedule," Gerald reminds her, sounding both fond and irritated. 

"Well, I meant your driving, darling. Alright, let's go! Kyle, take your time stepping down, there's mud here. Gerald, throw down your coat! Or should you carry him over this puddle?"

By the time they're knocking on the matchmaker's front door Kyle feels as if he's regressed to infancy, not as if he's on the cusp of manhood, which is what bundling is supposed to prepare him for. He's resigned to it, simply trying not to vomit as they wait for the matchmaker to answer. When she does, she's nothing like what Kyle pictured. He'd been envisioning a sort of fairy-like sexual goddess, but this woman is old, plain, and grouchy-looking, with spectacles and a ratty shawl. 

"You're here for the matching, I presume?" she says. Her voice is rather masculine. 

"Yes," Sheila says, and she bows a little, something Kyle has never seen her do before. "Oh -- Mrs. Garrison, how good it is to see you again after all these years! I don't suppose you remember me?"

"Sure I do," Garrison says. "The beefy redhead and the stringy boy with the dolphin fixation. I see you've produced a son." Her eyes fall on Kyle, who cringes, afraid of which descriptors she'll attach to him. "Reeks of perfume, but he's got good facial symmetry. A little on the small side -- most girls want a big hunk of meat, even at this age."

"Ah -- well." Sheila glances at Gerald. "Kyle actually wants to be matched with a boy, if you please."

"Oh, good," Garrison says, and Kyle is surprised by this reaction, though he's not sure why. "That makes my job easier. Plenty of boys want to be placed with one who's smaller than they are. And I've had some who find this hair color so fetching that they'd take either sex. Lucky that you're not all covered with freckles," Garrison says, and she grabs Kyle's shoulder, pulling him into the house. His heart is pounding, and he looks back to his parents, who both make hand motions ushering him forward, as if he has a choice. Garrison shuts the door on them; it's tradition that they wait outside.

Garrison walks Kyle down a dimly lit hallway and into a room filled with colorful pillows, stained glass windows looking out on the forest. There's a large fireplace that's currently in use, heating the whole room. Kyle feels himself start to sweat when his eyes fall on two boys from his village who are sitting on pillows near the fire, sipping tea. One is Craig, who is mean and fiercely competitive, and the other is Eric, who is mean and dangerously stupid. Kyle prays that neither of them wants a male bedmate, fearing that might be the case when Eric gives him a sneering smile. 

"Craig, you may go out to your parents," Garrison says. "I've got all the information I need to match you. Eric, have you finished your tea?"

"Yes, Mrs. Garrison," Eric says in a fake, syrupy voice. Craig scampers away without casting a second look at Kyle. 

"Go in to the parlor, Eric," Garrison says. "And bring your tea cup." She goes to a side table and pours some tea for Kyle. "It's very important that you drink all of this," she says when she brings it to him. "Sit there by the fire and wait your turn. Eric probably won't take long. He's not very subtle when it comes to his preferences." 

Kyle swallows heavily and nods, unable to find his voice. He sits by the fire and stares into the flames for a while, trying to make out the muffled words from behind the closed door of Garrison's parlor. He lifts the tea cup to his lips with a shaking hand and silently begs the gods not to let Eric ask for a feisty redhead with milky skin. Eric and Kyle fought quite a lot as boys, back when Kyle could still take him on, but now Eric is much bigger, and Kyle hides if he comes upon Eric in town. He would rather fight, but he knows his limitations and loathes the feeling of being held down by someone stronger, especially if they're laughing at his struggles as Eric always does. He's in a flop sweat by the time the door opens, terrified that his fate is already sealed. Eric winks at him before leaving, and snickers at Kyle's horrified expression.

"Come in, Kyle," Garrison calls. "And bring your tea cup. Have you finished?"

Kyle takes the last sip as he passes into the parlor, nodding. He takes a seat in the large armchair that Garrison gestures to, surrendering his tea cup. This room is warm and fire-lit, and the armchair is overstuffed, plush and comfortable, but this only goes so far toward calming Kyle's nerves. Garrison shuts the parlor door and goes to a sofa that faces the armchair, sighing.

"Well, that was a disturbing session," she says. "Fortunately I have just the hapless masochist for that little bastard." 

"For -- Eric?" Kyle says, stuttering. He's pretty sure he's not a masochist, so hopefully this means he's in the clear. Garrison nods and peers into Kyle's tea cup, humming.

"Very interesting," she says, and she looks up at Kyle, squinting a little. "But I'd like to hear it in your words as well. Tell me about yourself." 

"Well." Kyle swallows and presses his hands together, peering at the window on the far side of the room. It's snowing again; his parents must be cold. "I'm a good student," he says, feeling idiotic already. "I plan to be my father's apprentice and serve as a mediator in the village someday. I think my father is too lenient on the offending parties, sometimes. I think I would be stricter, but not too strict." He'd prepared all of this in his head last night, as his mother instructed, but it sounds so inadequate out loud. "Furthermore, I like books and stories. I -- I would like someone who had stories to tell, and who would listen to mine." 

"Mhmm-hmm," Garrison says, adjusting her shawl. She's not writing any of this down. "Well, that's very nice, Kyle. Now when it comes to sex, do you prefer giving or receiving?"

"Give -- giving?" He says so mostly to appear selfless, hoping that Garrison isn't being literal, because in most of his fantasies he's pressed tenderly to a bed and worked upon, though he also likes the idea of having a big cock in his mouth, something the boys in the village seem to have somehow discerned. Kyle denies it, of course, but they still tease him about it, wagging their hips at him in offering. 

"I see. And what sort of physical attributes would you like in a partner?"

"Well." Kyle wonders if he should mention the big dick he desires. Probably not, but he longs to make that clear, though it could backfire if he ends up with some unwieldy monster. "I suppose -- I'd like him to be comparable in size to me, but not too large, though also not so small that I would feel clunky in comparison. And, well. My skin is quite clear, you see, so I feel it would be only fair for me to have someone with no blemishes. Or few -- just a few wouldn't be so bad, because of course they do go away. And the teeth -- well, they should not be yellow, because mine are not, and not too small and crooked on the bottom, and certainly not missing, though if there is one gold tooth somewhere on the side, I could abide that. And not anyone fat, I should think, because while I am not entirely slender I have smallish proportions, and I should not like to be crushed. On that note, someone who sweats excessively--" He feels guilty for a moment, because he is soaked in sweat himself, under his coat-- "--I would not like that, I don't think." He makes himself shut up then, staring at Garrison, who seems amused.

"You're quite particular," she says. 

"I hope I'm not as bad as Eric," Kyle says, blurting this in a panic. "Please don't put me with him. I hate him entirely."

"Oh, don't worry about that. You think I'm such a bad matchmaker that I can't see you're incompatible with that beastly child?"

"No, sorry -- I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend--"

"Hush, it's fine. Some people come in here with a whole list of names they don't want to be paired with. It's understandable." Garrison consults Kyle's tea cup again, pursing her lips. "Alright, let's continue. You've described yourself as the academic sort. But how do you feel about nature?"

"Nature?" Kyle looks out the window again, at the snow. "I suppose it's fine," he says, fearing that his whole life might hinge upon his answer to this question. If Garrison has someone in mind, do they love nature, or hate it? More importantly, would Kyle love or hate this boy Garrison is thinking of?

"How about music?"

"It's -- it's nice. I can sing a bit." This isn't true at all, though Sheila does make him and Ike sing for her after dinner sometimes.

"Would you tolerate an artistic sort?"

Kyle considers this, sweating more profusely. He doesn't like artistic types, no. But what if the alternative is a sportsman who chews tobacco and scoffs at books?

"I think I could," Kyle says. "If. If the art is not too performative. Or public, I should say."

"Yes, I can see in your tea leaves that you're prideful." 

"Well, I -- I have dignity, I suppose, but--"

"Do you like blue eyes?"

Kyle's heart melts, because he likes those very much. But Craig has cold little blue eyes. 

"Yes," he says, meekly, hopeful. "But kind eyes, mostly. You see, I want someone who will be--" He has to gather himself for a moment, hearing the tremble in his voice. "Nice to me," he says. "I mean, who -- who will really love me, and kiss my face even while we're bundled, because he won't be able to help himself." Kyle stops there, nearly in tears with embarrassment. Garrison is smiling. 

"Oh, then you're in luck," she says. "Alright, I've heard enough. You'll be bundled in two days. Until then, you'd better practice being charming. You're much too prim, and you stutter. And I caught the faint whiff of sulfur -- do you fart when you're nervous? That's disastrous when you're bundled."

"It's my hair," Kyle says, a miserable weight settling onto him. He hadn't even considered that Garrison might match him with some beautiful prince who will be the one who is let down when he lays eyes on Kyle. "It's -- eggs, in my hair. To make it shine."

"Good grief. Alright, out with you. I can hear the next carriage arriving." 

When Kyle rejoins his parents at their carriage, he is met with a flurry of questions from Sheila. Sullen after being reminded of his flaws, he answers her curtly. 

"Well, was she encouraging?" Sheila asks, exasperated with Kyle's attitude. "Does she think she's got someone, or will she be looking for him on the last two days?"

"I don't know," Kyle says, not wanting to admit that Garrison certainly seemed to have someone in mind. If he tells his parents that Garrison is hopeful about the match, they will then be hopeful themselves, and disappointed if Kyle is the one who blows it during bundling. He'll have six nights of being wrapped up tightly with this blue-eyed person, and on the seventh night they can either choose to lie together unwrapped, thus committing to a lifelong bond, or to wait until next year's bundling season to find a better match. They both have to consent to the unwrapping, and Kyle feels certain already that his partner will smell eggs on him, metaphorically or literally, and decline to mount him on the last night.

The next two days are an agony of dread and anticipation, and Sheila seems almost as nervous as Kyle. With each corresponding bundling, the chance to be happily matched declines, and everybody's best chance is during the first year, at sixteen, when the glow of newness is upon them. Kyle doesn't feel as if he's glowing, however. He's sulking, more like, because Garrison called him prim.

By the time the evening of his bundling arrives, he's a nervous wreck, unable to eat anything but unsalted crackers. His mother makes him drink a big cup of strong tea, since he's supposed to stay up and talk with his partner on the first night, ideally. 

"Make sure you urinate!" she says when he's finished it. "You don't want to end up holding it for eight hours." 

Just the words 'eight hours' make Kyle feel as if he's already failed. How could he ever entertain someone for that long? They're allowed to sleep, of course, but Kyle can't imagine his pounding heart calming enough for that, not on the first night.

As the sun sets, Sheila wraps Kyle in his first layer, and she's sniffling back tears as Gerald looks on. Kyle is wearing only a thin nightshirt and cotton shorts, his feet bare. His mother secures the first layer around him, and already he can't move his arms or legs. By the time he's got the next three layers on he's a helpless lump, lying on his bed with his feet covered and the outer blanket tucked around his head, hood-like. 

"Let's make sure these are showing," Sheila says, pulling out some tendrils of hair to frame Kyle's face. "Your beautiful curls!" She bursts into tears, and Gerald rushes over to comfort her. Kyle can only lie there on the bed like a slug, blushing hotly from the humiliation of it all.

The bundling huts are in the middle of town, and there are lights in the trees all around them tonight, people mingling about and drinking ale, cheering as this week's bundled couples are brought out for their first night together. Kyle is in tears behind his blindfold, imagining how he must look as he's carried into his hut, which smells like candle wax and the cinnamon clove bread that's being passed out among the revelers outside. His parents are silent as they deposit him in the bed and remove his blindfold. There is no speaking allowed until the curtain in the middle of the bed is retracted. It's attached to a pulley that is outside the hut, so that when it is removed only the two bundled partners will be inside. Kyle peers up into his parents' teary faces, listening to soft footsteps from the other side of the curtain. He can feel the weight of the bed change as his partner is placed on the mattress, and a flare of pure excitement thrills through him for a moment. There is a boy over there, and he's probably got blue eyes. 

His parents give him the ceremonial 'kiss goodbye' on each cheek and shuffle out. The other pair has already left. Kyle holds his breath as the door of the hut closes, and he can hear his mother let out a sob as she hurries away. He can hear his own heartbeat, too, loud between his ears. He's lying on his back; he's practiced rolling over onto his side while bundled, but he's not ready to do so yet, and he checks his peripheral vision. His mother has bundled him well, giving him the ability to look to the side and see more than just the outermost blanket. For now he only sees the thick curtain, purple-red and rather menacing looking in the low light from the four fat candles in the corners of the room. Outside, the last of the revelers are herded away by officials and the shouted countdown to the curtains' removal begins in the distance. 

"Hello?" the boy on the other side whispers.

Kyle freezes, his ass clenching in fear, and suddenly the constraints of the bundling seem uncomfortably tight. 

"You can't talk yet!" Kyle whispers back. His heart rate skyrockets as he wonders what kind of hopeless yokel doesn't know this. "It's against the rules!"

"Oh -- sorry."

"You didn't know?" Kyle asks in disbelief, and he presses his lips together, willing himself not to speak again until the curtain is gone.

"I didn't think it mattered," the other boy says, full volume now.

"Shhh!" Kyle hisses. He pinches his eyes shut, fighting back a verbal condemnation. This is a disaster already.

Outside, the countdown reaches its conclusion. Kyle goes tense all over as the pulley activates and the curtain begins to move, starting at the foot of the bed. It's pulled in slow, purposeful yanks, and Kyle feels teased. The first thing he sees is a royal blue outer blanket that looks like a hand me down from some older sibling's bundling. More of it becomes visible, thickening at the middle of the bundle, and finally there is a sturdy chin, nice lips, straight nose, then the boy's eyes at last. He's closer than Kyle realized, and he startles, trying to calm down enough to study him by the light of the candles. The other boy is lying on his back as well, with his head turned toward Kyle on the long pillow that runs the width of the bed. He smiles. His eyes are blue, and he's so beautiful that Kyle forgets to keep breathing.

"Hi," the boys says. "I'm Stan. Sorry I talked. I was nervous."

Kyle is immediately, deeply in love with him.

"It's okay," Kyle says, and it comes out quite shakily, his breath returning in a gush. "I'm Kyle, I -- I'm glad to meet you." 

Stan rolls toward him and Kyle does the same, more awkwardly than he'd planned to. When Stan laughs, Kyle does, too, though this is not funny to him at all. This is goddamn serious: this is the love of his life, clearly, and it's starting now, for real; he's got to do this right. Go, he tells himself, his voice firmly stuck in his throat. Go, go!

"I should tell you," Stan says. "I'm not planning to go through with all this."

"You -- what?"

"It's just not right." Stan sighs, and Kyle notices his hair is not just dark but black, shiny and not egg-scented at all. Stan smells like boy sweat and plain soap, no frilly lavender added. "I mean, look at us," Stan says, and Kyle comes back to himself, partly, still confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Listen," Stan says, and when he squirms a little closer, Kyle does, too, ready for the kissing. "I'm going through with this so that there won't be any alarm bells, but I've been attending secret meetings, alright, and my friend Wendy leads them." He pauses, and Kyle tries to make himself understand what is being said here, distracted by how soft and pink Stan's perfect lips are. "Do you know Wendy?" he asks. 

"Wendy -- what, no." Kyle doesn't know any girls; why would he?

"Well, she's gotten a group of us sixteen-year-olds together and we've been talking about the bundling. It's not right -- it's our parents trying to tell us how to live, to box us all in just like they got boxed in. I want to see other towns, far away places, and I want to swim in distant oceans, and make people all over the world happy with my music."

"Oh." Kyle's opinion of Stan plummets, but he's still so beautiful. This rambling nonsense can't be accurate. "Wait, what. What are you talking about?"

"We're going to escape on the seventh night of the bundling, a whole group of us. You're welcome to come along if you want, but you'd have to bring your own supplies."

"Are you playing a joke on me?" Kyle searches Stan's earnest face for clues, and Stan frowns, shaking his head. 

"I wanted to be honest with you right away," Stan says. "And I should tell you - and please don't take offense - but I have feelings for someone else already. Romantic feelings." 

"Wendy?" Kyle's heart is breaking so completely, so quickly; this can't be real.

"No, no, I do truly prefer boys. His name is Kenny. He's a thief." 

"A thief?" Kyle is going to start screaming for the guards. He won't stand for this. 

"Yes, have you ever met one? They're really pretty smart. He's survived on his own since he was a boy, living in the woods, stealing from witches. He's got powers of his own, and he's going to help us all escape. You should come with us! It's going to be a great adventure, I think."

Kyle cannot speak, for if he opens his mouth he will unleash eight hours worth of curses and insults upon this fool. He takes a deep breath instead, summoning his inner strength. 

"You don't have to decide right away," Stan says. "I just wanted you to know that you can come along if you want. I didn't want to lead you on for six nights. So, um, but. What are you like?"

"What am I like?" The awkwardness of the question is almost as horrible as what came before, except that it's also adorably sincere. "I don't know. I'm not like your friends, I don't think. I don't want to run away from here." 

"Really? You love your village? That must be nice. I hate mine." 

"I don't -- no, I don't love my village. But I love my family! Don't you?"

"Oh, sure." Stan sighs. His breath is minty, and Kyle wonders why he bothered, if they won't be kissing. He can feel his heart sinking, as if it's physically burrowing back into the bundle of blankets, its attempt to journey outward rejected. "I do love my parents," Stan says. "Though my father is an idiot. But they mean well -- it's nothing against them. It's the society."

"Society." Kyle pictures this Wendy person preaching to a room of gullible teenagers. His mental image of her is not flattering. 

"Yes, it's just -- why should we be paired up when we're so young? Why should some matchmaker have a say? I thought she was mean." 

"Why? What did she say to you?"

"She told me I'd better not talk about my music, or I'd come off as having delusions of grandeur. As if she'd even heard me play!"

"What do you play?" Kyle asks, hoping his tone won't reveal his lack of enthusiasm for the subject. 

"The guitar. I wish I could have brought it here, to show you. See, if we were really courting, they would let us do that, wouldn't they? Instead of this whole charade." 

"Maybe we should just sleep," Kyle says, and he rolls onto his back. "And skip the charade entirely." 

"Oh -- no, see, I didn't want to hurt your feelings. You are lovely, and you seem smart."

"I'm not lovely." Kyle scowls at the ceiling. "Not as lovely as Kenny, anyway, I'm sure."

"Mhmm, no, you are. Kenny is an acquired taste." 

"What on earth does that mean?"

"I fell for him based on other qualities. I mean, he's pretty dirty, most of the time."

"God!"

"And he's got, well, his teeth aren't the best. You have great teeth, I noticed."

"Don't flatter me!" Kyle says, making his hands into fists inside his blankets. "Do you realize what you've done? You've blown my chances of getting matched. Next year I'll be an old maid, and no one decent will want me." He imagined Eric still being around at that time, still leering.

"Can't you see how ridiculous that is? An old maid at seventeen? Our lives have barely started!"

"The only thing I can't see is why that damned old witch matched me with such a foolish boy!" Kyle rolls away, and in his haste he moves too fast, shouting in distress as he rolls off the bed entirely. 

"Kyle!" Stan cries. 

"Oof," Kyle says, from the floor. 

"Are you alright?" 

Kyle can hear Stan scooting madly, trying to reach the edge of the bed and look over at him. He fights away tears in the meantime, waiting to wake from this nightmare of a first bundling. When Stan's face finally appears at the edge of the bed he's winded from struggling to get there, his cheeks pink and his eyes full of sympathy. 

"Oh, poor Kyle!" Stan says. "Should I yell for help?"

"No, god! It would be the embarrassment of the century! Just let me lie here and wallow in my misery until morning." 

"But it's cold down there." Stan grunts in frustration and struggles against his bundling, his cheeks getting brighter. "I want to help you." 

"Well, you can't. No one can, and least of all you, with your thief and your 'adventure.' I'd ask the gods to help me, but clearly I've been entirely forsaken. Why are you smiling?" Kyle asks, enraged. 

"It's nothing, just. I like the way you talk. Look, move over. I'm coming down there." 

"What! Why?"

"Because if you have to sleep on the floor to protect your pride, I should, too. It's my fault you fell, anyway."

"That's true," Kyle mutters, furious. "But I don't see how -- wait!"

He rolls away just in time to not be crushed by Stan, who falls onto him partly anyway. There isn't much room between the bed and the wall of the hut; the whole point of these huts is to house the beds, with just enough room for parents to stand on either side as they deposit their bundled offspring. Kyle and Stan are both thickly bundled, struggling together between the low frame of the wooden bed and the wall, Kyle huffing and Stan laughing under his breath. 

"Stop that!" Kyle says. "It's not funny!"

"I know, I'm sorry." Stan's face is very close now, and so is the rest of him. "It's just so absurd. Can't you see the humor in it?"

"Quit asking me if I can see things! Clearly I don't have your lunatic vision. Christ, it's cold down here!" 

"I know, but here." Stan squirms closer, though they're already firmly pressed together, unable to move apart. "I'll keep you warm," Stan says, his breath doing its part to heat Kyle's cheek. Kyle sneaks a look up into Stan's eyes. They're dark blue, calm and sweet, the kind of eyes Kyle has dreamed of looking into and seeing love and adoration reflected back at him. "I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment," Stan says. "I knew I would be, but I hope -- maybe I can convince you to see things my way." 

"No. I won't be convinced, so don't waste your breath. Let's just go to sleep." Kyle closes his eyes and tucks his chin down, wanting to nuzzle his face against the heat of Stan's neck. 

"Will you tell on me?" Stan asks, whispering. "In the morning? Spoil my plan?"

"A smarter person would have considered that before he unveiled the whole thing to a stranger whose own plans he's ruined. But no," Kyle says. "I've nothing to gain from telling everyone that my partner plotted to run clear out of the country the moment he met me."

"Kyle, that's not true. I've plotted this for months. I hoped I wouldn't like the person who got matched with me, so that I wouldn't feel moved to trust him with my plans, but I liked you right away." 

"That's ridiculous. I snapped at you for talking before they moved the curtain."

"But then you smiled at me and accepted my apology."

Kyle considers this for some minutes in silence. He can hear Stan swallowing, and he's fidgeting inside his bundle. With his eyes closed, Kyle presses his face to Stan's outermost blanket, feeling only a little of the warmth of him through all those layers. 

"This thing smells like applesauce," Kyle says, wanting this to come out like an insult.

"Oh -- yeah, I got hungry again after they bundled me. My mom gave me a few spoonfuls, and some dripped. Sorry." 

It's almost hilarious to hear him apologize for that, after all the rest, but mostly it's just sad. Kyle allows himself to drift into a feeling of temporary security, wedged between this boy and the bed frame. He won't be able to sleep, not right away, but there is something nice about being so near to another person as the thickest dark of night settles over the village. Outside there are still a few distant cries of celebration from people at the village pubs who are remembering their own bundlings fondly. Kyle fears he'll never know the feeling. 

"Are you sleeping?" Stan whispers. It's just the kind of tender entreaty Kyle once wished for. He keeps his face hidden and pretends that he didn't hear it.

**

Kyle wakes when he hears the curtain being wheeled back into place up on the bed. For a moment he has no idea where he is, only that he's very warm and can't move. He shifts and catches a whiff of Stan, remembering everything. It's like being tossed over the edge of a cliff, again. His perfect boy is here, waking with a groan and squirming sleepily against Kyle, but he's not perfect at all, just teasingly close.

"Oh!" That's Sheila, at the door. "My god -- what's happened?"

"Stan?" A man's voice, certainly Stan's father. Stan groans again, and when Kyle peeks up at him, his eyes are closed.

"We fell," Stan says. "We're fine." 

"Oh -- well, wow." That must be Stan's mother. Gerald says nothing, predictably. 

"So, uh, what do we do?" Stan's father says. 

"I'll get Kyle first." Sheila sounds annoyed, and Kyle wonders how the customary meet and greet between the parents went last night. "Goodness, my poor dear -- Gerald, give me a hand!"

"See you later," Stan says as Kyle is lifted off of him. Kyle glowers down at Stan, and his heart turns over when Stan's face falls, but he won't be moved by one sad expression. He won't forgive Stan for ruining this for both of them, ever.

Outside, Kyle closes his eyes against the cold, unable to believe now that he didn't anticipate the sheer misery of being carried back to the house by his father, still in his bundle, onlookers mumbling commentary. His mother at least waits until they're in the privacy of their home to start questioning him.

"Well?" she says, unwrapping him. Kyle is back in his own bed, stone faced and silent. "Aren't you going to tell us how it went? When I saw you two on the floor my heart nearly stopped! I've never even heard of such a thing."

"Really," Kyle says. "In the history of bundling, over hundreds of years, no one has ever fallen out of the fucking bed?"

"Kyle!" Gerald says, from the doorway. "Language!"

"Oh, honey! What went wrong? I can see it on your face. You're white as a sheet." 

"Nothing went wrong. But I can tell you right now that we're not a match, so don't get your hopes up." 

"Bubbeh, are you sure? It's only one night, and the - well, are you going to tell us how you both ended up on the floor, exactly?"

"I don't think so, no. I'm not required to disclose what goes on in that hut, as far as I know."

"Well, I'm asking nicely!" Sheila removes his third layer and his second, frowning. "Oof," she says when she reaches the first. "Honey, you're so sweaty. And -- ah, god." She finishes unraveling the innermost blanket and throws it onto his lap, presumably to spare herself the sight of his aching morning wood. "Go have your bath. We'll talk more at breakfast."

Kyle makes his bath very hot and sits in it for a long time. He masturbates furiously, and then at a more leisurely pace, thinking of Stan both times, though not entirely of Stan. He also mixes in the lumberjacks and some faceless dicks, though he's partly thinking that these dicks might be Stan's.

"I heard you humped your partner right onto the floor," Ike says as soon as Kyle sits down at the breakfast table. "Or was he trying to beat you up while still bundled?"

"You told him?" Kyle says, turning to his mother, livid. 

"I did not!" Sheila says. "Ike, where did you hear that?"

"When I went out to the well this morning, Ruby Tucker told me. Everyone is talking about it -- they're saying you two are the couple most likely to succeed, or just the horniest." 

"I want to die," Kyle says, leaning over his oatmeal. 

"You do not!" Sheila whacks him on the shoulder with the spatula she's using to make Gerald's eggs. "It's not the worst thing to be talked about as a viable couple! As long as that Stan boy wasn't actually trying to hurt you, bubbeh?"

"Of course he wasn't! He's perfectly mild and nice and all that. But he's also -- ugh, never mind. We're not right for each other." 

"Well, I guess I'm not that surprised, having met his parents. His mother is lovely, but that father! He was drunk as a boiled owl last night." 

"Who would ever boil an owl," Ike says. "And why would it therefore be intoxicated?"

"Ike, it's an expression! Anyway, Kyle, I suggest you make the best of it. Practice your skills for next year." She sighs, and Kyle feels so unfairly judged that he wants to blurt Stan's plan to her, but he knows that he can't.

"Skills?" Kyle says, his teeth grit. 

"Flirtation! You know, and conversation. You've got five more nights together, whatever you think the outcome will be. Might as well get some use out of it!"

Kyle sleeps for most of the day, grieving. The year ahead will be one of shame and loneliness, while other boys and girls his age are gifted with their first cottages and cooking supplies. All they have to do to earn their basic life-making materials is to want to fuck each other, and Stan thinks this is unfair somehow. To Kyle it seems like a miraculous blessing, and anyone who would want to throw away their chance at a real start in life in order to play his guitar in foreign lands with some magical thief for company is a tremendous idiot. He just wishes this particular tremendous idiot wasn't so nice looking and sweet, willing to roll off of beds for him if nothing else. It's more than most people have done for Kyle recently. 

Night approaches, and Kyle listlessly submits to his bundling. The three undersheets are fresh, but the outermost blanket is the same one from last night, the one Sheila made especially for the occasion. The thought depresses Kyle as she completes his bundling. He might as well have worn an old, applesauce-splattered thing like Stan, who could clearly care less what his bedmate thinks of his wrappings.

"Now Kyle," Sheila says as she walks alongside Gerald, who is carrying him back to the hut at dusk. Kyle is not blindfolded this time, though he wishes he was. "Try to keep an open mind. I was thrown when I saw you two on the floor, but Stan is rather handsome!" 

"What difference does it make to you?" Kyle asks, sorry for how bitter he sounds but unable to help it. "His handsomeness has no bearing on your future grandchildren. He won't be impregnating me." 

"Kyle!" 

"This whole thing is really bringing out the worst in you, son," Gerald says.

"Thanks, Dad."

Kyle arrives before Stan, which hurts his feelings, as if Stan is stalling this for as long as possible -- as if Kyle wouldn't have if his parents had let him. The curtain is again drawn, which seems silly now that they've seen each other. Kyle mumbles goodnight to his parents and listens as Randy carries Stan in. 

"Try to stay off the floor tonight, son," Randy says, though he sounds kind of proud. 

"Thanks, Dad," Stan says. "Great advice."

Randy leaves, and Kyle hears Stan sigh. Kyle stays perfectly quiet, to spite him. 

"How was your day?" Stan asks, and Kyle's resolve crumbles instantly. He lets out a whimpering sigh of his own. 

"Tiring," he says. 

"Yeah, mine too." 

Outside, the bell that signals the start of the night's bundling sounds, and their curtain begins to move. Kyle again thinks that it moves much too slow. He rolls toward Stan, surprised by how much he wants to see him. He's further surprised when the curtain finally pulls back enough to allow their eyes to meet, and Kyle's burn as if he might cry. Stan smiles, not as convincingly as the day before. 

"Apparently word got around about us," Stan says. 

"Yes." Kyle conceals his half-formed tears with a kind of snort-blink, then has to wipe his nose on his blankets. "My brother made some comments." 

"Kenny did, too."

"Really?" Kyle hates this Kenny so much. He's given some thought to doing physical harm to him, which is hard to enjoy when he doesn't know what that would look like, exactly. "Describe him," Kyle says. 

"What?"

"I mean, you said he's dirty and has gross teeth. What else does he look like? There have to be some upsides."

"Well, sure." Stan seems taken off guard, as if he can't think of any. "He's tall, and blond."

"Blond," Kyle says, with disgust.

"He's got blue eyes, lighter than mine. He's got a dimple on his left cheek."

"I hate that word," Kyle says. "Dimple. It sounds like something that you'd find in a diaper. How old is he?"

"He's not sure," Stan says, and Kyle snorts, rolling his eyes as emphatically as he can. "He's somewhere around twenty." 

"The absurdity of not knowing one's own age notwithstanding, what kind of twenty-year-old is seducing a naive first year bundler? A perverted one, that's what," Kyle says before Stan can answer.

"Did you just call me naive?" Stan asks. 

"Well, I can't think of any other word for wanting to fly away on a guitar and a prayer with some elderly criminal." 

Kyle expects Stan to berate him for that, his heart beating hard in anticipation, but Stan bursts into laughter, which hurts worse. 

"You're hilarious," Stan says. Kyle waits for something mean to follow, but Stan is just smiling at him. 

"It's not natural for a twenty-year-old to court someone your age," Kyle says, putting his hilariousness aside for now. "Has he failed at bundling three times? Don't they kick you out after that?"

"He's never been allowed to bundle! That's another reason the system is broken." 

"Oh, so it's him who's really convinced you so. That makes more sense."

"I'm not some dumb kid. It's dumber not to see the problems with this arrangement." 

"And just why hasn't he been allowed to bundle?" Kyle asks, his face getting hot with rage. There's nothing he likes less than being called dumb. 

"Because he's not registered, Kyle. He doesn't have parents. He's an orphan who lives in a tree."

Now it's Kyle's turn to laugh hysterically and unexpectedly. He can see Stan struggling not to, chewing his lip. 

"Shut up," Stan says, grinning. "It's not funny. He's had a hard life."

"Oh, fuck him, who hasn't? Anyway, you said he'd heard we were on the floor this morning? What did he have to say about that, in his wisdom?"

"Well." Stan's smile is quickly gone. "That's the thing. He was upset. I tried to explain about, you know. It being an accident, but there was so much talk in town. You know how people love to gossip when the bundled couples try to fuck each other through the blankets." 

"That's what they thought we were doing?" Kyle's face grows hotter, though he's not sure he's actually angry or even very embarrassed about this. It's a kind of compliment to his allure, really, if people believe his partner knocked him right off the bed in a desperate attempt to have some kind of blanket-muffled sex.

"Of course that's what they thought." Stan rolls his eyes. "My father was getting clapped on the back all day for having a virile son who couldn't be stopped by the bundling." 

"My village is not like that," Kyle says, now mildly horrified for his reputation. "Do they think I encouraged you?"

"No, the story is that you rolled away in fright, and I, in my virility, chased you right onto the floor. It's such a disgusting narrative, as Wendy put it." 

"And Kenny was jealous?" Kyle says, pleased. Stan shrugs. 

"I've never seen him sulk like that. He wanted us to run away before I got bundled, but that's too risky. Everyone is on the lookout for kids who bolt out of nerves. Afterward is the safest time, especially--" He breaks off there.

"Especially what?"

"If I go on the seventh night, while everyone thinks the successful bundles are fucking. That's when all the villagers gets blasted in celebration. It's the perfect cover."

"Yes," Kyle says, feeling as if Stan has just ripped another hole in his chest, next to the place where his heart was. "Convincing everyone to believe that you're partaking in a loving bonding ceremony with your eternal partner -- what an excellent time to betray your family by abandoning them."

"Kyle -- it's nothing personal, really. If the bundling system works for you, that's great. But--"

"Well, clearly it's not working for me, Stan, in that you've thrown a wrench in the whole thing. Whether you think it's acceptable or not, the fact is that second year bundlers have a greatly diminished chance of being accepted by their partners. They're viewed as flawed and suspect. And that's the fate you've assigned me to." 

Kyle rolls onto this back, glaring up at the ceiling. Though he's furious with Stan for ruining his life, he's still very glad when Stan scoots toward him, huffing with the effort of moving his whole bundled self over to Kyle. 

"Hey," Stan says, softly, and something about this reaches Kyle's dick. Deep inside the layers of blankets, it awakens. "I know, it's an unfair standard, and I really hate the idea that I've hurt you. Is there anything I could do to make it up to you?"

Kyle thinks of a dozen or so pathetic things he could ask for from this boy who will never love him. Most of them involve kissing, and several involve their dicks, which aren't even accessible at the moment. A thief -- that's exactly what this Kenny person is. He's stolen Kyle's life right out from under him. 

"I want to meet Kenny," Kyle says. 

Stan blinks at him for a moment, then frowns. 

"Well. You can't." 

"How come?"

"Because I don't think he would be nice to you. And for that matter, I don't think you'd be nice to him." 

"I'll find him," Kyle says, nodding to himself. "I mean, how many thieving Kennys who live in trees can there be?"

"What are you going to do to him if you find him?" Stan doesn't actually seem that worried, which is insulting but probably appropriate. 

"I don't know. What kind of magic powers does he have?"

"I'm not sure."

"You're not sure? I thought you were lovers!" 

"He doesn't like to talk about his powers."

"A-ha. He just wants you know that he has them. Theoretically. To hold that over your head. You poor creature." 

"Don't call me a poor creature! You're the one who deserves pity, being stuck in all this mess." 

"If the alternative is running away with some delusional band of homeless teenagers, I'll gladly stay here in this mess, thanks."

Now Stan rolls onto his back, and they both look up at the ceiling for a while, breathing hard. 

"I wonder why Garrison matched us," Stan says. 

"I don't know. Probably because you're a lost cause and I'm a misfit. She asked me if I liked nature. Was that about you?"

"I did tell her I like nature."

"And music."

"Yes, and that." Stan sighs. "I think she could sense my hostility toward the whole situation." 

"She told me I stuttered," Kyle says, still upset about this. "I don't think I really did. Maybe once, but I haven't stammered yet with you, have I?"

"Not at all. You're very, uh, decisive in your speech." 

"Thank you."

They're both quiet for a while, and Kyle resents how much he's enjoying just the sound of Stan's breath and the irrelevant nearness of him. Outside, the village seems too quiet after the previous night's partying. 

"It was a side of him I'd never seen," Stan says. 

"Huh?"

"Kenny. How he got all sullen about me ending up on the floor with you, as if I'd wanted to. He's been distant since I agreed to do the bundling before we leave, according to Wendy's plan. It's the smart thing for us, I said. He said he understood, but I can tell he actually doesn't approve, and that he wants me to know he doesn't, though he also won't admit it. I'm just. Surprised that he could be so petty."

"You're very forthcoming," Kyle says, perturbed. "I suppose it's because you value honesty, as you say, but I don't know that I could ever trust someone who is so easily honest with everyone he meets."

"I'm not, though! Wendy calls me secretive. I didn't tell her about my crush on Kenny for several years. I think it's the bundling. I'm left with nothing to do but lie here in my bondage and talk."

Kyle squirms at the mention of bondage. He's heard that some couples resume bundling for recreational purposes later in their relationships, one bundling up the other out of nostalgia, and for advanced sexual reasons that Kyle isn't sure he understands yet.

"How did you even meet this Kenny?" he asks.

"I was wandering in the forest five years ago, talking to birds." 

"Talking to--" Kyle shakes his head, leaving that aside for now. "You were eleven when this miscreant latched onto you?"

"He didn't latch on! We became friends. He gave me little presents, and taught me how to whistle so that the birds would sing back." 

"I cannot listen to this," Kyle says, squirming in his blankets. "No, especially not as your matched partner. I feel robbed, I tell you -- this Kenny has corrupted you from a young age. You have been brainwashed, my friend." 

"How so?" Stan asks, laughing.

"He gave you presents! This older boy, and you just some youth wandering alone in the woods, talking to birds? There are too many red flags here for me to count!"

"Look," Stan says, so firmly that Kyle is hurt. "There's something you should know. I may have given you the wrong impression about Kenny and I. You see, I love him, and we're going to travel the world together, but we haven't spelled out our romantic feelings yet. He hasn't even kissed me, so your theory that he only wants to fondle a young person is completely wrong!"

"This news is even worse!" Kyle says, though he knows he should back down, at least a little. "So he has no idea of your feelings for him? When he learns of them you may be halfway around the world, and there he will abandon you for some other interested party!" 

"You don't understand about Kenny. He wouldn't do that, we're too close. And anyway, I wouldn't be alone. Wendy and the others will be with me, as I've explained multiple times. God, you might be the most intentionally obtuse person I've ever met!" 

"And you might be the most ridiculous ass I've met! Talking to birds, what on earth? Even at the age of eleven, that's really something -- did you expect them to answer you?"

"Well, they did, actually, after Kenny taught me how to properly sing to them!" 

Kyle has to bite his tongue, some truly cruel sentiments poised at the tip. Stan goes silent, too, and the candles flicker as they burn down a bit lower, the frigid night outside offering no interruption of their silence. 

"Kyle?" Stan says after Kyle has begun to drift into semi-consciousness, his ideas about how he might find Kenny blurring together into nonsense.

"Hmm?" He hadn't meant to answer, but he's too close to actually dozing off to effectively pretend he's already sleeping. 

"I'm sorry I called you thick. I think I've done a lot of talking about myself, but I've made very little effort to understand where you're coming from. Could you tell me, um -- what do you want out of life? What is your dearest dream?"

Kyle sighs and blinks at the ceiling, his eyelids feeling heavy. He's close enough to sleep to answer this question honestly, unguarded.

"I want a match," he says. "A real match, an unshakable one that fate and ritual have brought together. It means something to me, all of this. Or, I want it to. I want to belong to someone. Even more than the other way around. It's so lonely being cared for only by my parents and my brother. I want a real partner, a boy like me, only not exactly like me, more like a compliment. Someone to hold me in bed and wash my back, and bring in the firewood when it's cold and I don't want to go out. I don't want adventure - and not because I'm not brave! I want to be so well matched that my great love is an adventure itself. Isn't there something brave in wanting that? Now that I know I've been a fool, I feel like I at least must have also been brave, to hope it could be real."

"You're not a fool," Stan says after Kyle has been quiet for some time. Kyle closes his eyes, uninterested in pity. He is glad, however, when he hears Stan rolling toward him. Stan lands against his side and exhales. Kyle keeps his eyes closed, fighting off the urge to smile. Stan feels so shapelessly big, swaddled in all those layers of blankets. "Do you want to know the real truth?" Stan asks, whispering. 

"Yes. Wait, about what?"

"About me. The truth is, I'm scared."

"Of running away?"

"Yeah. I'm scared of staying, though, too. So you are brave. You're not a fool, you just know what you want. I only pretend to, and then I claim to be honest." Stan scoffs, and Kyle can feel it on his cheek. He opens his eyes and turns to Stan, somehow surprised to find his face so close. 

"I'm sorry for what I said about the birds," Kyle says. "I suppose it's no more whimsical than how I believed I could be matched with someone who loved me." 

"Believed, past tense? You don't anymore?"

"No," Kyle says, proud of himself for keeping his voice strong, because it hurts badly to say it out loud. "I think this, being matched with someone who loves another person already, is the worst kind of omen. It's just about the only possible outcome I didn't think to fear, and here we are."

"But next year, ah-- or even if you're walking through the woods, you never know where you might find your love. I think you're quite lovable." 

"Oh, what crap! You don't even like me." 

"I do, though! You're different. You're someone who talks about real things, but without -- without being like Wendy, who is so sure she has all the answers." 

"Well, I'd rather be delusional than feel this hopeless." 

"I don't think that's true," Stan says, studying Kyle's face. Today his breath smells like blueberries, but only faintly.

"I suppose it's not," Kyle says, and he closes his eyes. Stan rests his forehead on Kyle's cheek, and Kyle holds his breath, wanting him to stay there, though it's a pitying gesture. 

"Do you think you could shake your hood off?" Stan asks. "Or did she cinch it too tightly?"

"I -- I don't know, why?"

"I was wondering what the rest of your hair looks like."

"Why do you want to know?" Kyle asks, peeking at him. Stan moves back a little, pink-cheeked. 

"No reason. I've just never seen hair like that. I mean, red, yes, but not quite like this."

"Quite like what?" Kyle asks, feeling a bit freakish. 

"Just -- that soft red color. I mean, it looks soft, in this light. The red haired kids in my village have this screaming loud hair, like candied apples." 

"Even my mother's is not quite this color," Kyle says, feeling proud of himself for this, though he did nothing to earn it. "It's called russet, I'm told." 

"Russet? That's not a pretty enough word for it."

"Why are you trying to flatter me?" Kyle peeks at Stan again, a dismally hopeless arousal traveling down toward his crotch when he glances at Stan's lips, which are so close. 

"I'm not," Stan says. "I just want to talk. I'm all wound up. Are you really ready to sleep?"

"Why don't you tell me a story?" Kyle says, rolling toward him. "If it's good, I'll stay awake. If it's dull, you'll lull me into a peaceful slumber. It's a win-win."

Stan laughs and settles in beside Kyle, facing him. After thinking for a moment about his selection, he tells a story about a magician's apprentice who secretly borrows his master's staff and gets himself into trouble with an evil spirit. In the end, the elder magician saves him.

"So what was the point of all that?" Kyle asks, tipping his face up toward Stan's. "He didn't learn anything or get punished at all, really."

"Well, in the original version that my dad told me, the boy gets eaten by the evil spirit, who takes on the boy's appearance and later tries to kill the magician, and the magician can't bring himself to kill what he thinks is the boy, so the evil spirit kills him and takes the wand back to the spirit world, and so on -- it's meant to be a warning about stealing and lies, but I didn't like that ending too much." 

"Of course not, since your lover is a thief!"

"He's not my lover, as I explained." 

"Alright, quiet. I'm going to tell you a real story with a moral and everything."

Kyle tells the one about the boy who wishes to be good and is split into two people by a witch: one good, and one evil. His evil self has a will of its own and runs amuck, hurting his loved ones. The moral of the story is that people should appreciate how their good qualities temper their bad ones on a regular basis, rather than wishing to be perfect. Kyle believes he's told it well, and is glad when Stan is not only awake at the end but smiling. 

"That's a real classic," Stan says. "But I don't like the ending." 

"What? Why not?" At the end of the story, the boy has to kill his evil self, and in doing so he becomes weaker for the rest of his life, as frail as an old man. "I think it's a perfectly appropriate ending, considering the message."

"Well, it's appropriate, yeah, but it's sad."

They each tell another story before drifting to sleep, and this time around they both freely interrupt to ask questions. As they get more tired they dissolve into subplots and have to back track a bit, laughing together when the details don't make sense. Kyle falls asleep first, to the sound of Stan's voice. 

"It's so cold," Stan says, and he moves onto Kyle for warmth, pressing his face to Kyle's forehead. None of the huts have fireplaces, and the beds don't have additional blankets. This austerity is meant to encourage physical intimacy, creating the need to cuddle up together. Kyle sleeps well with Stan's breath tickling over the bridge of his nose, warm enough.

 

In the morning, Kyle awakes to whispering, but it's not Stan. It's their mothers, standing in the open doorway and letting the cold in, giggling under their breath at the sight of the two boys cozied up together. Kyle must have shifted during the night; his face is pressed to Stan's neck now, Stan's pulse thumping against his cheek. He pretends to go on sleeping for as long as he can, until he hears Gerald's voice out in the yard, and Randy's, too.

"Oh, do you have to wake them yet?" Stan's mother says when the fathers' footsteps approach. "Look how sweet they are." 

"At least they managed to stay on the bed this time," Randy says, and Stan startles awake. 

"See you tomorrow," Kyle says as Gerald lifts him off the bed. This stage of the ritual is supposed to increase the bundled couple's longing for each other: being parted early in the morning, before they are ready to be separated. Stan yawns and winks at Kyle as he's carried off. Kyle is thrilled by this until he considers that it might just be a kind of coded message, a reminder to go on keeping Stan's secret.

Back at the house, Kyle is unwrapped in his bedroom. He crawls under his blankets when he's free, wanting to get warm again. 

"So?" Sheila says. She sits down on the edge of the bed and runs her fingers through Kyle's matted curls. "Last night was better, I take it?"

"It was fine," Kyle says, mumbling this into his pillow. "I'm tired."

"Does that mean you stayed up for most of the night? Talking?"

"Yes. But mother, he's still not for me." 

"Oh, Kyle, why not? You had your little face pressed to his neck!" The mattress trembles slightly, as if Sheila is jiggling with delight at the memory.

"We were just cold, Mom. The matchmaker screwed up. It won't work, but we're going to see the bundling through, out of respect."

"I think you're just being secretive about your little crush!" Sheila kisses his cheek and breezes out of the room, humming. Kyle cracks his eyes open against the pillow, his chest aching. He would do anything to share in her glee, but he won't let himself get his hopes up after one night of huddling together for warmth with Stan. Kenny has been around for much longer, kissing Stan or not. Kyle wonders if he should go to the woods near Stan's village to try to find this elusive character, but he knows that he won't. Kenny is a magic user, allegedly, and Kyle is not actually brave.

Kyle sleeps well into the afternoon, and when he wakes he feels truly rested for the first time in months. He languishes in bed, blinking at the curtained window and touching himself under the blankets. It feels good to move about unrestricted after eight hours of being wrapped so tightly. He lets his eyes flutter shut, his thoughts wandering to Stan's lips as he strokes his cock and spreads his legs, his other hand moving across his chest, up to his nipples. Though there's an edge of truly painful longing, it feels good to allow himself to imagine Stan unwrapping him on the seventh night, Stan's gentle hands traveling all over his body, Stan's cock hard and dripping for him.

When he comes it's with a kind of intense relief that he needed badly, and he barely remembers to muffle his shout, arching off the mattress. He wipes his hand on the sheets and curls up around his pillow, pleasure still thrumming through him. It's in the haze of the aftermath that his thinking about this situation begins to change. Why should he admit defeat so easily, when there are still four nights of bundling ahead? Clearly this Kenny character isn't without flaws, and he's already annoyed Stan by pouting about the bundling. If Stan really wanted to run off with the thief, he would have forgone the bundling, risks be damned. There must have been some part of Stan that was curious about who he would be bundled with, and last night he was so sweet, listening to Kyle's stories and nuzzling his cheek. Kyle bites the corner of his pillow, grinning to himself. He's not so pathetic as the other boys in the village think: he's got some tricks up his sleeve. By the time he gets out of bed, his appetite returning full force, a plan has formed.

"Would you do the part around my head a little looser tonight?" Kyle asks when his mother is bundling him after dinner.

"Well, sure," Sheila says. "But I wouldn't want it to fall down. The back of your neck would get cold!"

"Ah, but--" Kyle looks down at the floor, playing this up as a shy admission. "Stan said he'd like to see my hair."

"Oh, what a darling request! I think we can manage that, yes. Just have him press his lips to the back of your neck to keep you warm, eh?"

"Mother," Kyle says, smiling.

Sheila makes the outermost blanket loose enough that Kyle will be able to shake his curls free later, and as Gerald conveys him to the bundling hut he's not ashamed of how he must look. He's determined now to think of himself as a warrior going to battle. The land he's trying to win is Stan's heart, currently ruled by a wicked thief. There are cracks in the thief's fortifications, however, places where Kyle might find a way in.

Stan is already there when Kyle is brought in, talking with his mother on the other side of the curtain. They go quiet as Gerald places Kyle in the bed, and Kyle hears Sharon whisper 'goodnight' before she leaves. Gerald gives him a pat on the cheek.

"You boys have fun," Gerald says, and Kyle has to hold in nervous laughter. He grins when Stan lets some loose after Gerald has gone.

"Hi," Kyle says, smiling up at the ceiling.

"Hey. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm good."

They're both relatively early tonight, and there will be half a minute or so before the curtain is raised. Kyle is so excited about his plan that he's getting an erection, though he's anxious, too, afraid to lose his last fragile hopes.

"Did you see Kenny today?" Kyle asks, wanting to get this out of the way before he sets his plan in motion.

"No. He sleeps during the day, works at night."

"But you saw him yesterday?"

"Yeah, he came to see me. Which is rare. I usually go to see him, in the woods."

"Hmmm."

When the curtain starts to move, Kyle uses the noise as a cover and shakes his head back and forth until the outer blanket falls back off his forehead. He hopes his hair looks good; it probably doesn't, matted by the blanket, but Sheila did what she could in preparation.

"Oh, hey!" Stan says when their eyes meet, Stan already turned toward Kyle. "Your hair!"

"Yep, here it is. Is it a mess?"

"No, it's nice! I mean, I like it. I mean -- thanks."

Kyle snorts, pleased. "You're welcome."

"You want to see mine?" Stan moves his head about, trying to get his blankets loose, but it doesn't work. Kyle laughs at the sight of him squirming around like an agitated bug inside his blankets, and Stan gives up. "It's just black, anyway," he says, and he smiles.

"I wish I had straight hair," Kyle says. "Mine is so difficult."

"Straight is boring. If I unrolled one of your curls and then let it go, would it spring back?"

"Yes." Kyle does that to himself all the time, a nervous habit. 

They tell stories for a while, though Kyle can sense that Stan isn't as interested in fairy tales as he was the night before. Kyle needs to do this, however, to transition into the next stage of his plan. He tells a story about a princess who is unfrozen by a true love's kiss, keeping it succinct when Stan's yawning becomes more frequent. 

"You know," Kyle says after he's reached the ending, which is a bland one involving a marriage between the unfrozen princess and her true love, a humble stable boy. "This story has got me thinking. It's -- the bit about the princess never having been kissed before. Most people haven't been, um, before they're bundled. And you said -- that Kenny hadn't, so. Have you?"

"Been kissed?" Stan is already blushing. "No. Have you?"

"No! Of course not. So my thinking is: we're stuck here for four more nights, right? My mother was suggesting I practice my conversation skills, and I was thinking, why not practice kissing? The two of us? Because then, um, that way you won't seem so new to it when you have your first kiss with Kenny, who is older and probably experienced, having been among thieves and other rough characters, and I'll have valuable practice for next year's bundling, when my work will certainly be cut out for me."

Stan stares at Kyle, looking startled.

"You think Kenny has been kissed by rough characters?" he asks. Kyle rolls his eyes, then worries he's ruined the moment.

"I don't know, Stan. You could ask him, but then you'll appear quite naive and young, I think. What I'm proposing is some practice, so that you'll know what you're doing when he begins to try to have you. But if you're not interested, we can--"

"No, I'm interested." Stan swallows twice. Kyle can hear it, a wet click. "It's a good idea."

"Yes, I think so." Kyle was so hoping this would happen, but now he's frightened. He tells himself not to be, but his own goal here is not as innocent as the one he's sold to Stan. He wants Stan to like kissing him, and to be overtaken by a surprising need for more and more, but he has no idea how to make that happen. He's getting the feeling, from Stan's nervous expression, that he's going to have to take the lead.

"Did you want to do it now?" Stan asks, and Kyle has to hold in a laugh that may have offended him.

"Yes, I think so. Um. Well. We should get a bit closer, obviously."

They scoot together, avoiding each other's eyes. When Kyle finally looks up at Stan's face, he can feel his own cheeks flushing. Stan is bright red now, and he looks from Kyle's chin to his ear before shyly holding his gaze.

"Shut your eyes," Kyle says, perhaps too harshly. Stan seems glad to obey, and Kyle closes his, too. He feels a little calmer, but not very, and he's surprised when he feels Stan's lips pressing against his. He peeks, checking to make sure Stan's eyes are still closed, and melts into the kiss when he's seen that they are. It's nice, warm, and Stan's lips are soft. Stan is breathing through his nose in hot little huffs against Kyle's top lip. Kyle tries to keep his own breath measured, his eyes shut tightly as he wonders if he should break the kiss. Stan does before he can decide, and they both blink rapidly at each other, their faces still close.

"Was it how you thought it would be?" Stan asks. 

"Yes," Kyle says. "And no. I think we both need more practice."

"Mhmm," Stan says in agreement, and he closes his eyes before presses his lips to Kyle's again. This time, Kyle tries puckering, just slightly, and his cock throbs when Stan responds by pressing his lips more firmly to his. Kyle laughs, unable to suppress his glee, and he can feel it when Stan smiles. "It's pretty good," Stan says, murmuring this against Kyle's lips. "Like -- cozy." 

"It has a warming effect," Kyle says, trying to remain scientific. 

"My face," Stan says, and he winces, embarrassed.

"I didn't just mean your face. I meant my whole, you know. Body." Now Kyle feels his own face getting hotter. 

"I've seen my sister doing it with her husband," Stan says. "She uses her tongue." 

"How?"

"Uh. I don't know." Stan licks Kyle's mouth like an eager dog, and Kyle laughs. "Sorry," Stan says. 

"No, do it again! But slower, or something."

They spend the rest of the night experimenting with tongues and commenting on their findings, their voices progressively growing lower and more private, as if there is anyone around who might hear. Kyle finally loses his ability to withhold moans of pleasure when Stan sucks on his lower lip, and he snaps his hips inside his bundle, desperately wanting something to rub his cock against. He's been hard for what feels like days.

"That was good?" Stan says. He's breathing a bit choppily. Kyle nods and presses his face to Stan's, begging for more. He moans again when Stan indulges him, chewing gently on his lower lip. 

"Fuck," Kyle says, and Stan laughs. 

"I'm getting stiff from this," he says.

It takes Kyle a moment to work out what Stan means. He feels slowed down and hazy, like he's been drinking wine.

"Oh -- hard?" Kyle moves back a little and glances down at Stan's bundle.

"Don't look!" Stan says, though there's nothing to see; the wrappings are too thick. 

"Can you see mine?" Kyle asks, pressing his hips forward. He grazes Stan's bundle and groans. "Sorry."

"I can't see it," Stan says. They both breathe hard for a moment, searching each other's eyes. When Kyle moves slightly, ambiguously, Stan presses against him, and soon they're both writhing with shameless vigor, panting as they try to rub their erections together through six layers of thick blankets.

"It's not enough," Kyle says, whining. "I need -- ah. To spread my legs, and I can't."

"We could--" Stan looks around desperately, as if some instrument of relief will appear. This is precisely why Kyle always wanted to be with a boy: he feels like he knows exactly how Stan feels at this moment, painfully hard inside that bundle, and it's only adding to his own arousal. "Here, try this." 

Stan rolls onto his stomach, and Kyle does the same. He can tell by Stan's own futile squirming that attempting to hump the mattress isn't working very well, but he tries it anyway.

"God," he says, groaning. "I would give anything to be able to spread my legs." 

"This is insane," Stan says, still trying to fuck the bed. "It's got to be bad for us, unh-- medically."

"I have an idea," Kyle says, and they turn their faces toward each other, both of them panting. "We could, um. Spin stories to help the feeling along." 

"Huh?"

"Say dirty things! To each other! If that's not too -- I mean. If that doesn't sound too devious to you." 

"No, it's perfect! But you start." 

"Why have I got to start?"

"It was your idea!"

"But I don't know what to say." Kyle actually has a few ideas. It's just too scary to be the one who says dirty things first. 

"What would you like done to you?" Stan says. His eyes seem to have gotten darker, but it's just the fattening of his pupils. "Say that. Theoretically. To me."

Kyle considers his options and how well he could potentially voice them. He's never been formally told about sex, but like all boys his age he knows plenty from schoolyard talk. His parents refer to it as the 'mystery' that he will 'solve' with his true match upon their successful bundling, whereas Eric and the other crass boys can pantomime this mysterious act by making a circle with their fingers and sticking another finger through it. Kyle knows where the cock goes when it's two boys together. He just doesn't know how it gets in there, and has been afraid to even poke at himself in curiosity, mostly out of fear of germs. Perhaps because of this fear, he's never imagined himself investigating someone else's entry point. His fantasies have always allowed him to keep his hands clear, perhaps holding his legs out of the way while some bolder partner works out the details for him. 

"I can't say it," Kyle says, feeling like he might cry from the need to come.

"Say what?"

"The dirty things!"

"Tell me generally. Start out slow."

Something about Stan giving this instruction is incredibly arousing. Kyle takes a deep breath and lets it out. He closes his eyes, which helps.

"I would like -- I would like to be unwrapped. Not to be the one doing the unwrapping. I'd be hard, from anticipation, and embarrassed to be looked at initially, so I'd like my partner to, um. Fall onto me, naked, and cover me with his body." 

"Talk about how it would feel, though," Stan says, still squirming inside his bundle.

"You said to speak generally!"

"Well, yes, but I'd like to hear about sensations." He goes still, catching his breath. "If you don't mind." 

"Sensations, well. It would be warm, obviously. The skin to skin part, anyway. The hut is still cold on unwrapping night -- I know that. So we would probably get under the blankets together, naked. We would put our hands all over each other, um. You know."

"Would you want him to touch your dick?" Stan asks, beginning to move again.

"Yes," Kyle says, softly. "And I'd like his hands to be a little rough, but not very. The palms, I mean."

"Why?"

"Because, ah -- I don't know! You say something now." 

"Alright." Stan stops moving and huffs a few breaths, his fat pupils locked on Kyle's eyes. "I'd like to spread my partner's legs wide and kiss him between them." 

"Oh?" Kyle could feel his heartbeat slamming in the hollow of his throat.

"Yes. And not just his cock, though I would kiss that. And lick it, and hold it in my mouth, on my tongue--"

Kyle began to move again, keeping his unblinking eyes on Stan's face.

"I don't know about the balls," Stan says, and Kyle laughs, but it comes out sounding like a desperate gasp. "Maybe, depending on what they were like. But there's this place underneath them -- that smooth place? I'd kiss him there, and then all the way down to – you know."

"The hole?" Kyle pauses in his writhing, his eyes going wide. "But you can't do that!" He clenches up tightly, trying to imagine the wet heat of someone's mouth there. "It's filthy." 

"Well, I'd ask him to wash first, I guess. I know it's strange, but I'd like to, um. Make him feel really good, down there. Before going in."

"So you'd like to go in?" Kyle resumes humping the mattress, pleased, though he supposes it's Kenny who Stan would like to enter. That seems odd, since Kenny is older. Maybe Stan is thinking of Kyle, after all that kissing. 

"Yeah," Stan says. "I'd really like it, I think. It's supposed to feel so good. Wouldn't, uh. Don't you want that?"

"No! I mean, maybe. I'd like the other thing. The being -- full." 

"Oh." 

They stare at each other. Kyle doesn't feel any closer to coming, despite the dirty talk. He only feels unfairly teased, sweating inside his bundlings.

"The thing is," Stan says, and Kyle braces himself when he sees the change in Stan's eyes, a kind of seriousness pooling into them. "I think the reason I want a boy is that I only feel protective of girls. Like they're special and sweet and should be respected. I think boys are special, too, and some are sweet, and of course they also deserve respect – but in bed, in my daydreams, I feel differently toward them. Not like I want to keep them up on a shelf. With boys – with certain boys – I want to bend them over, take down their pants and claim them, roughly – if they'd let me – and, and I just want to feel some strong, proud boy go limp and shameless with pleasure on my dick, and scream and come so hard just from me fucking his ass—"

Kyle cries out and comes, fucking the mattress as wildly as he can. His shout fades into a long, low moan as his cock empties into the depths of his bundle, and he's still pulsing afterward, so relieved. Stan is whining at the back of his throat, squirming and trying to get off. Kyle knows he owes it to him to help, and he swallows down the excess moisture in his mouth. 

"What you said, ah, about being strong and proud?" Kyle says, still short of breath. "Yes – I feel like I must act that way all the time, especially since I've got a younger brother to set, ah – an example for, but the truth is? I want to be that boy you describe, at least in my fantasies, and sometimes, when I touch myself, I think of being pushed over in the schoolyard and claimed like that, with some bigger boy grunting behind me, holding my hips so I can't escape his cock, pounding my ass and telling me that I belong to him now, that he'll do this to me whenever he wants—"

Stan whimpers in a broken way that tugs at Kyle's heart, then he shudders and comes, his eyes closed, drool pooling at the corner of his lips. When he's finished he blinks at Kyle sleepily, his whole bundle heaving with his breath. Kyle can feel his own come cooling now, congealing uncomfortably.

"Thank you," Stan says, and Kyle blushes. "Thank you, thank you, god, thank you." 

"It was only fair. Thank you, um, as well."

They're silent for a while, reassessing their dignity. Kyle feels slightly horrified at himself for having said that about the schoolyard, but also proud for having helped Stan to come.

"Will Kenny be jealous?" Kyle asks. It's probably not the right thing to say, but he can't stop wondering, and Stan is so quiet over there, suddenly distant as the cold closes over them again. 

"Kenny?" Stan huffs and rolls onto his side, facing Kyle. "No, I -- I won't tell him. It would only hurt his feelings."

"Mhm. And you think he'll be that boy for you, this thief? He'll bend over and show you his hole?" Kyle is getting angry again, afraid his plan has succeeded in the short term and failed spectacularly in the larger scheme of things. Stan frowns.

"I don't know, but – that's just sex stuff. Fantasies. It doesn't matter as much as other things."

"Other things like what? Undeclared feelings of vague loyalty? Secrets about who you got off with the night before?"

"Don't be cruel to me after we just came together!" Stan says, and this statement seems to surprise even him after it's out. Kyle is too stunned by it to come up with any rebuttal. "I don't know how things will go with Kenny," Stan says when he's collected himself. "But I do appreciate the practice. It will come in handy, I'm sure, especially the kissing." 

Hurt, Kyle rolls away from him. He'd hoped to be kissed again in the aftermath. It's one of his most dearly held fantasies: to be reduced to a babbling slut, broken open like a yoke by his orgasm, and then gathered into loving arms and reminded that he's safe. He hears Stan moving behind him, grunting with the effort to get closer, and he goes very still. 

"What are you doing?" Kyle asks when Stan settles against him, his breath hot on the back of Kyle's neck.

"Keeping you warm here," Stan says, his lips moving on Kyle's skin. "Since I'm the one who made you take your hood down."

"You didn't make me," Kyle says, sneering. 

"But I asked you to," Stan says. "And you did."

Kyle shudders inside his bundle. He feels as if Stan is gloating that he can make requests which Kyle will obey. Kyle is not sure why this should be arousing, but it is. He's glad, too, for the warmth of Stan's breath against his neck and the heat of him along his back, even against his ass. Maybe especially there.

**

In the morning, when Kyle has been conveyed back to his parents' house, he asks his mother to let him remove the innermost layer of the bundle, not wanting her to encounter his crusted come. 

“I understand,” Sheila says, gathering up the rest of the blankets. “Did you have a – special feeling, last night?”

“Mother!” 

“Alright, I'll leave you alone! But that's a very good sign about your compatibility, you know, if he can make you that excited.”

“God! Please go!”

When she's gone, Kyle unwraps the bottom of his most inner blanket and examines the evidence of what happened. It already feels like a dream, but not in the sense that it wasn't real. It feels like something he and Stan dreamed together, as if they really went to that schoolyard and did those things. Kyle thinks of it while he sits in his bath, squeezing his ass cheeks together under the water, wanting to feel a soreness that isn't really there. 

He goes back to his room after his bath, wrapped in his robe and ready to sleep for a few hours. He feels drained by the night before, and he isn't sure what to expect on the fourth night, or if he has any energy left for hope. The last thing he's expecting as he closes his bedroom door and turns for the bed is a lanky man sitting in his open window, dressed in worn clothes and smiling wickedly.

“Who are you?” Kyle asks, though he has an idea. He could scream for his mother, but that would be embarrassing, and he doesn't want to look weak in front of this man.

“I'm a friend of Stan's,” he says. “Kenny. Maybe he mentioned me?”

“He might have. What are you doing in my room?”

“I'm not in your room. I'm in your window.”

Kenny is better looking than Kyle imagined, though his teeth, from what Kyle can see, are not ideal. He has blue eyes, lighter than Stan's and piercing in a way that makes Kyle feel exposed. He wishes he was wearing something other than his ratty old robe. 

“What do you want?” Kyle asks after they've studied each other in silence for a few seconds. 

“Nothing in particular,” Kenny says. “Just to get a look at you.” 

“Well, now you've had it. Have you been to see Stan yet today?” Kyle wonders if Stan made some guilty mention of the kissing and dirty talk. If he did, Kenny might be here to stab Kyle and plunder his room. 

“No,” Kenny says. “I can't go to Stan's village during the day. I'm wanted there, by the law. Did he tell you that?”

“He implied as much. He told me you're a thief.” 

“That's an oversimplification.” 

“Look, what do you want?” Kyle asks when Kenny goes on staring at him, smiling in an unsettling way. “Stan told me about your plan to leave town together. I'm not going to try to disrupt it, if that's what you're worried about.” 

“Oh, I'm not worried. I just wanted to make sure you were what I suspected you were.”

“And what's that?”

“A little boy.” 

“Get out of my room,” Kyle says, glowering. “I might be a boy, but at least I'm not a pervert who's preying on one.” 

“Stan's no boy,” Kenny says, and his smug smile finally dissolves. “I guess you've only seen his face, with the rest of him all wrapped up – he does have a boyish face. But he's very much a man, under there.”

“Get out,” Kyle says again, aroused and upset by the thought of Stan's concealed manliness. 

“I'm going,” Kenny says, though he's motionless. “I've got things to do."

"Stan says you sleep during the day," Kyle says with a sniff, trying his best to feel superior.

"He's told you a lot about me, huh?"

"No, not a lot. Just that you live in a tree, and something vague about having magic powers. I'm not sure I believe that part."

"My magic powers aren't especially evident," Kenny says, and the smirk returns. "But Stan has certainly experienced them."

With that, he jumps out the window. Kyle walks over to shut it, and he watches Kenny slip away, into the neighboring backyard. If Kyle was smart, he would alert the authorities and solve his Kenny problem by having him locked up for whatever charges of thievery he's wanted for, but he can't do that to Stan. He loves Stan, after all, and unfortunately. 

Kyle tries to sleep the day away, but even when he manages to settle down enough to drift off, he has bad dreams about Kenny. In the dreams Kenny is a demon, or a wizard, someone who has hypnotized Stan into subservience. Kyle wakes from these dreams and frets that it's true: was that what Kenny meant by Stan having experienced his powers? The only other way to interpret it is as some crass sexual remark, and Stan claims to be untouched so far. 

"You're quiet tonight!" Sheila says when she's wrapping Kyle for the evening's bundling. 

"I'm tired," Kyle says.

"I'm not surprised! Clearly you and Stanley were doing something strenuous last night."

"Mother—"

"Oh, I know, and it's perfectly natural – but don't do too much of that, Kyle. You don't want to seem cheap."

Kyle has no idea what will go on between him and Stan on this night or the next two. The kissing was good, the dirty talk exceptional, but the coldness afterward was crushing, and now that Kyle has met Kenny he feels that much more real, an actual person who will take Stan away on the seventh night. As Kyle's father places him on the bed in his wrappings, he has no plan. Sheila left his hood loose again, but Kyle doesn't bother to shake his curls free. He stares up at the ceiling and listens to the retreating footsteps of their fathers, who are talking together amicably as they leave. Stan is silent on the other side of the curtain. Kyle is determined not to speak, and he keeps his eyes on the ceiling as the curtain is pulled away.

"What's wrong?" Stan asks. 

"Nothing."

"You look angry."

"I do not. You're the one who's lying over there like a corpse, not talking." 

"I had an odd day," Stan says, and Kyle glances over at him. He hasn't decided if he should tell Stan about Kenny's visit or not. It might make Kenny seem like the dangerous predator he certainly is, or it might seem romantic to Stan, the idea that his magic thief broke into his rival's room to leer at him and call him a little boy. 

"I suppose my day was odd, too," Kyle says, leaving it at that.

"I saw Wendy today," Stan says. "She was – different. She's bundled with a boy called Token, and she likes him. She's having second thoughts about running away, I think, but she won't admit it." 

"What do you care? You'll have Kenny with you either way."

"I know." Stan looks up at the ceiling and sighs. "It's just. I've known Wendy all my life, and I imagined I'd have her along on the trip. That's all." 

"Now you're calling it a trip? I thought it was an adventure? The start of your real life?"

"Don't make fun of me," Stan says, softly, and Kyle feels bad. He rolls onto his side, facing Stan, and is heartened when Stan does the same. They're still half a foot apart. 

"I'm sorry," Kyle says. "I'm just angry, you know?"

"With me?"

"Well, yes, with you, but only because I wish you would stay."

"Stay?" Stan fidgets as if he can't decide whether to move closer or not. "With you?"

"Yes, with me! Last night – I liked it, the kissing, and the – all of it."

"But that's just kissing. I'm still an idiot who talks to birds, remember?"

"You're not an idiot," Kyle says. He hadn't planned to discuss any of this, but he's too exhausted to hide his feelings properly after three nights that have felt more like three weeks. "You're different from me, but that only makes me want to know more. Oh, never mind. I'm just embarrassing myself."

"No, you're not." Stan moves closer, his hood falling down as he does. Kyle grins; he must have told his mother to make it loose tonight, so Kyle could see his hair, which is silky and full of static, sticking up in several places. "I liked it, too," Stan says, whispering. "Maybe too much."

"Too much?"

"It's just – I'd never done any of that before. And it's been all I can think about since we did." 

"Mhmm. Well, we'd better not do any more of it, then," Kyle says, hoping his improvised strategy isn't too transparent. "Since you're spoken for."

"But I'm not – not really," Stan says. Kyle is very glad he didn't tell him about Kenny's visit, though now he runs the risk of having Kenny spill the beans himself. "I mean, I – I am, I do love Kenny, and I am going to run away with him. But. I want to kiss you. Kyle—"

"Oh, just do it! I don't care that you're going to leave me. I want it too much to pretend I've got any dignity."

"You've got plenty of dignity," Stan says, mumbling this against Kyle's lips. They both push their tongues out eagerly tonight, and Kyle moans at the sensation. Stan tastes like cornmeal and honey, and it's intoxicating in combination with his natural flavor, the warmth of his tongue and the softness of his lips. Soon they're both breathless and nipping at each other, laughing when they pause to look into each other's eyes.

"I wish I could reach your ear," Kyle says, trying to crane his neck. "I'd like to, um. Suck on your earlobe. You have nice ears." 

"I'll roll onto my stomach," Stan says. "Or – I had an idea." 

"Yes?"

"If I could – do you think I could get on top of you somehow? I mean, would you like that?"

"I would, but. I don't know if it's possible."

"I think it is," Stan says, whispering. "Listen, I told my mother to make my wrappings loose tonight – not just on my head, all over. She wouldn't do it loose enough to allow me to escape, but I've got some mobility, alright, and I'd really like to be on top of you."

"I'd like that, too," Kyle says, his voice cracking. Stan nods, kisses him deeply, and begins his attempt to mount him, thrusting a loosely wrapped knee onto Kyle's leg for traction.

It takes some time, and all of Stan's grunting and moving about makes Kyle very hard. Once Stan is finally on top of him, they immediately begin rutting against each other, Stan's mouth wet and hot as they kiss victoriously. It doesn't take long for them to start up with the dirty talk, their words broken up by panted breath. 

"I bet it's so cute," Stan says, and that's when Kyle knows he's going to come, his hips working feverishly as he tries to imagine he can feel Stan's hardness through all the layers. "Your little hole," Stan says, and though Kyle already knew what he was talking about, it's so very nice to hear that out loud. He groans and throws his head back, exposing his neck to Stan's kisses. 

"It's tight," Kyle says, his teeth clicking against Stan's when he lifts his face to kiss his mouth again. "So tight, for your dick – I'd cry and beg you to fuck it raw, to fuck me open—"

It's the kind of nasty talk that's always made him cringe, but here, safe with Stan and in the throes of passion, it feels like poetry, especially when Stan groans and plunges his tongue into Kyle's mouth as if he wants to taste those words on his tongue. 

"Imagine I'm inside you," Stan says, whispering this against Kyle's mouth. "That you're so full, straining to take it but wanting me even deeper, pressing yourself up to feel every inch of me, greedy for more—"

That's what sets Kyle off, and it's even better than last night. He screams, not caring who might hear, his ass clenching around the cock that's not actually in him. This time it's so much better, because Stan kisses him through it, moaning softly into his mouth as if in approval. It takes Kyle some time to recover and remember that Stan is humping him not in congratulations but because he still needs to come. Kyle is just hazy enough to access his most private, shameful fantasy.

"After you've come inside me," Kyle says, keeping his eyes locked on Stan's, which are so completely fixated on him that it's almost frightening. "I – I'd want you to sit back and hold me open with your fingers, to watch your seed drooling out of me, and to know that you've made me yours, that you've tamed my ass forever."

Stan growls when he comes, and Kyle is even more proud than he was when he pulled a whimper out of him. He presses his cheek to Stan's while he shudders through his orgasm, pretending that it's being pumped into him. He feels as if it's true when Stan gives him a slobbery kiss: something left Stan's body and entered his, and it was sacred, despite the filthy words. 

"Oh, Kyle," Stan says, and in the haze of the afterglow it almost feels like _I love you_. "Kyle, Kyle – what are we doing?"

"We're bundling," Kyle says, and Stan laughs. He stays on top of Kyle, kissing him and sighing heavily, rubbing his nose against Kyle's.

"I was so sure," Stan says, resting his face against Kyle's neck.

"Shh," Kyle says, afraid to break the spell with talk of the future. "Thank you," he says. "Thank you for this. It – I never – never thought someone would be willing to listen to my obscenity."

"It's not obscenity," Stan says, murmuring. He kisses Kyle again, sucking on his bottom lip as he pulls away. "It's – I don't know. It's like magic."

Kyle thinks of Kenny and feels a chill.

"How sad," he says, because the spell is broken now. "That we'll only have this for two more nights."

"Mhm." Stan sighs and slides off of Kyle, resting against his side. "It's so manipulative," he says. "This process."

"Yes." Kyle feels as if someone has just placed their boot on his throat -- Kenny, perhaps. "I'm so sorry to have manipulated you just then. How evil of me."

"No, Kyle, it's not you! It's -- ah, god. I don't want to hurt you. You're so sweet."

"I'm not sweet! To hell with you!"

"Shh, Kyle--"

Stan nuzzles at Kyle's face, enticing him back into kissing. Kyle frowns but opens his lips for Stan's tongue, grunting in protest even as he kisses him back. It's too good to pass up, but when he thinks of how he'll lose it he can't imagine how he'll survive, having known this intoxicating comfort so briefly.

Kyle falls asleep with his face pressed to Stan's, feeling Stan's ponderous sighs on his cheek. He has no further strategy or any more plans. He's entirely in Stan's hands, and it's terrifying, though also warm enough at the moment to lull him into a deep sleep. He wakes much later, from a dream about bathing in spoiled milk. Something is very wrong: he feels strange, and a sour stink has filled the room.

"Shit," he whispers, his panic starting as a dull awareness at the back of his skull, a pinprick of terror that is quickly widening. He drank too much tea with dinner and allowed himself to become too relaxed after that orgasm. He's pissed himself, soaking his own bundle and part of Stan's, too.

Stan wakes with a soft moan when he hears Kyle weeping. Kyle cries harder, unable to articulate what has happened. Stan will figure it out quickly enough, and then things between them will really be over, even before the gossip gets out to their villages. Kenny was right: Kyle is just a stupid little boy, and a disgusting one, too, who has peed on his bedmate.

"What -- oh." Stan looks down at the wet spot on Kyle's bundle, and at the smaller one that has stained his own. "Oh -- shit, are you alright?"

"No," Kyle says, sobbing. "Clearly not."

"Kyle, ah. It's okay. It's just pee, right?"

"Just pee? Just pee, well, yes. It's also -- oh, god, the keepers will see it when they come in to clean the hut! They'll have to change the sheets and the mattress, too -- oh, god, god, I'll never hear the end of this!"

"Shh, it's okay--"

"It's not okay, Stan! I'm ruined, don't you see? And I've -- dirtied you, oh, god, I'm so sorry--"

"Kyle, no, it's nothing." Stan kisses his face when he dissolves into sobs again. "Shh, it's alright. Oh, don't cry. Please, I've been so bad to you. It's my fault."

"Your f-fault? How on earth--?"

"I don't know, but I feel responsible! Let me tell them it's mine."

"Stan, for the love of god! It's obviously mine!"

"Why obviously? No, I think -- I think we could pull off the lie."

"But why would you? No, it's my mess. I should take the blame!"

"I don't want you to, though." Stan is still kissing his face, keeping close enough that his cheeks are damp with Kyle's tears, too.

"Why not?" Kyle asks. "Because I'm the one who's got to be bundled again next year? Oh, it doesn't matter - they might as well know I pissed my partner. It's not like I won't be a laughingstock anyway, when people found out you've run off with your real lover."

"He's not my lover, or he hasn't been yet, I've told you--"

"Well, he's your love, though, isn't he? You know -- he came to see me today." Kyle sniffles, feeling very cold and dirty, lower than ever, though it's also nice to have his wibbling met with Stan's soft kisses.

"What?" Stan says, pulling back. "Kenny came to see you?"

"Yes! After my bath, there he was, sitting in my windowsill like some kind of forest sprite, and I suppose that's what he is, or close enough."

"What did he do? What did he say?"

"Nothing. Well, he called me a little boy, sneered at me and implied that you've been enchanted by his undisclosed powers. But he's -- he's lovely, I guess, in a ragamuffin way, so I wish you luck. Now I suppose I'll roll onto the floor and sleep there alone, in a puddle of my own piss."

"Kyle, you will not!" Stan moans and closes his eyes. "Kenny feels so threatened by you. I suppose it makes sense. I'm so confused."

"Then you should thank me for peeing all over you, which has surely lessened your confusion. Obviously I'm the wrong choice."

"No, you're not. Not obviously. In a way -- this will sound insane, but this has made me even more fond of you than before."

"What -- what has? My urine?"

"Yes -- no! Not that exactly. But seeing you like this, so upset, so in need of -- of a real partner. I don't want you to be alone with what's happened. This has happened to both of us, not just you. We'll see it through together."

Kyle wants to interrogate him about exactly how this will work, but he's too embarrassed to keep looking Stan in the eye, let alone to continue having this conversation. He ducks his head down and closes his eyes, almost losing it again when he gets a fresh whiff of the stink of piss.

"I hate that you feel alone," Stan says, his voice getting small. "Look, we've both got pee on us. I share in the responsibility for it. I've been awful to you, so awful--"

"This is not some emotional response to trauma!" Kyle snaps, keeping his face hidden. "It's just too much tea with dinner, and, um. You were on top of me, putting pressure on my bladder."

"God, I was. See, then it is my fault."

"Perhaps," Kyle grumbles. "I'll never be able to sleep now, you know. Lying here in this cold stench."

"Kyle, I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does, you do matter, and I've used you--"

"Stop talking!" Kyle says. He doesn't protest, however, when Stan kisses his forehead in apologetic little pecks until somehow, miraculously, he drifts off to sleep.

Kyle wakes at dawn, achy and still reeking of pee. It only takes a few tired movements of his head for Stan to wake as well, and they blink at each other, breathing into each other's faces and saying nothing.

"How am I going to face your parents?" Kyle asks.

"I've come up with a plan," Stan says. His voice is deep and scratchy from sleep, and Kyle wants to kiss him for it, but now is not the time. "We'll say that I mounted you, which is true, and that I kneed your bladder in my enthusiasm."

"That's -- that's actually not a bad story."

"Yeah," Stan says, and he smiles like he just realized this himself.

"But what if Kenny hears about it, as he heard about us falling off the bed? This will be much more sensational, I assure you."

"He—" Stan breaks off there and frowns. "Well, I don't know what he'll do. But he won't bother you at home again. I'll make sure of that."

"How?" Kyle asks, and he sucks in his breath when he hears their fathers approaching the hut. "Stan," he says, whispering. "Protect me." 

"I will – oh, Kyle, shh. It's really not as bad as you're making it out to be." 

Sheila and Sharon walk in ahead of the men, peeking in cautiously at first. Sharon smiles at their closeness on the bed, and Sheila looks stricken when she sees Kyle's face. Her nostrils twitch. 

"There's been a small accident," Stan says. "It's nothing to worry about, and completely my fault."

"Not completely," Kyle says, giving his mother a meek glance. "It was my bladder, anyway." 

"That's what that smell is?" Sheila says, and her face begins to color. "Oh, Kyle." 

"It's not his fault," Stan says again. Kyle shrinks against him, afraid to look at his father as he comes to the door, and even more horrified by the thought of vulgar Randy having a laugh about this later, at the pub. "You see," Stan says, the confidence ebbing from his voice, "I got on top of Kyle, in a clumsy way, and I jabbed him in the wrong spot with my knee. I feel terrible about it, but luckily he's forgiven me." 

"Stanley!" Sharon says. She's blushing now, too. Randy and Gerald still seem slightly confused, and Sheila has a pinched look on her face. Kyle knows he'll get a talking to later. "That's – you've put Kyle in a very awkward position with your, ah. Enthusiasm." 

"I'm sure Kyle isn't totally innocent in the matter," Sheila says tightly. "Oi, and now – what will we tell the keepers? They'll need to clean this up." 

"Not necessarily," Sharon says. She glances behind her and ushers the fathers into the hut, shutting the door behind her. "Quick, before someone notices," she says, going to the bed. "Gerald, Randy, grab the boys. Sheila, let's flip the mattress and pull off the blankets. We can sneak fresh ones in here with the boys tonight, tucked into their bundles." 

"Honey," Randy says. "Can't we just let the officials do all this?"

"No, Sharon is right," Sheila says. "Grab the boys, you two! We have to do what we can to protect Kyle's reputation, since he's unwilling to do so himself." 

"Mother!" Kyle says. 

"Hush, you. Honestly, boys, some horse play is expected, but when you're so frantic about it that an organ nearly ruptures, that's enough." 

"It's hardly an organ rupture," Sharon says. "Kyle was bundled with a full bladder, apparently. These things happen." 

There's tension between the group as the mothers hurry away with the dirty sheets and the fathers carry the boys out of the hut. Kyle tries to meet Stan's eyes once more, but Randy has already turned his back on them. 

"Unbelievable," Sheila says as soon as they're through the door. "I'm glad you're so well-matched, young man, but you've got to have some respect for the remainder of the ritual." 

"I do!" Kyle cries, more angry than embarrassed now. "You've got no idea! I'm not the one who doesn't respect the ritual!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sheila asks. "And can you believe the nerve of that woman?" she says, turning to Gerald. "Implying that this is my fault, for bundling Kyle without emptying his bladder? He's nearly grown! I was counting on you to take care of that yourself," she says, rounding on Kyle again. 

"Dear," Gerald says, still holding Kyle in the middle of the kitchen, as if he's not sure he's allowed to set him down yet. "I think you're overreacting a bit." 

"Am I, huh? Ha! We'll see who reacted appropriately when that Randy person spreads this gossip all over the village."

"He won't, will he?" Kyle says, desperate to believe this. "Not with Sharon being so concerned about keeping it a secret and all." 

"Who knows what those people are capable of!"

"I thought you liked them!" 

"Well, maybe I've changed my mind. Gerald, what on earth are you doing? Take him in the bedroom and unwrap him! That smell is making me ill." 

Kyle holds back angry tears as his father unwraps him enough to allow him to do the rest himself. When Gerald leaves the bedroom, Kyle allows some tears to fall, kicking the soiled wrappings away when he's free. He tries to console himself with the positive developments, Stan's sweet words about not wanting Kyle to go through this alone, but Stan was only panicked and trying to be kind. Kyle's true nature has revealed itself, in the form of free-flowing piss that they both had to wallow in, and whatever shortcomings that Kenny person has, Kyle doubts he's ever done anything so vile in Stan's presence.

As he climbs into his bath, Kyle begins to shiver, allowing reality to settle over him: he's played the few cards he had, and now he's pissed them all away.

**

At dinner that night, Kyle waits in tense silence for Ike to make a joke about the bed wetting incident, but Ike chatters on about the forthcoming ice fishing season as if he has no idea what happened. It's a small relief, but Kyle is glad not to have to endure his brother's teasing in addition to his dread of facing Stan again. His only consolation is the certainty that Stan will never tell anyone what happened, not even Kenny. Though Kyle has known Stan for less than five days, he's sure that Stan would not betray him or humiliate him by laughing over the story of his disastrous bundling, even years from now. It settles on Kyle's shoulders heavily, how much he trusts Stan to protect him.

Sheila is quiet as she bundles him, and when Kyle considers how much more disappointed in him she'll be when Stan leaves town with Kenny he begins to feel nauseous. 

"You're sure you don't need to go one more time before I do this?" she asks, and Kyle glowers at her.

"I barely even drank anything at dinner," he says. "There's nothing to expel."

"Well, alright. Stop giving me that look. It's just that you can really blow things in the last few days if you seem too -- needy." 

"Mother, you have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, of course not. It's not as if I'm twenty years older than you and a veteran bundler. What could I possibly tell you about this, or anything, eh?"

Kyle has no response, too defeated to bother. His mother continues bundling him, muttering to herself and making his wrappings extra tight. Kyle's mouth is dry when his father carries him to the hut. Sheila stays behind at the house.

“She's so desperate to get me matched and out of her house,” Kyle says, avoiding his father's eyes, which are hard enough to look into when Kyle is wrapped up and being carried across town like an infant. “I suppose it's because she'll be embarrassed by me if I'm stuck in her house for another year, unwanted.” 

“That's not it,” Gerald says. “She just wants you to be happy.” 

“Well. She acts as if I don't want that, too!”

“It's more like she's afraid you don't know how to get, uh. Whatever's going to make you happy.” 

“Yeah, sure. She wanted me to get bundled with some awkward girl who would have been glad to have a man to sit next to her by the fireplace. She thinks I can't get a man.” Kyle flushes after saying this, and he can feel his father growing uncomfortable, too. They have academic discussions and have always gotten along fine, but Kyle usually doesn't share these kinds of concerns with Gerald, and the fact that he's being carried around in a swaddle increases his humiliation at having done so now. 

“I think things will work out with this Stan boy,” Gerald says. “He was very concerned about, ah. Protecting your honor, this morning.” 

Kyle says nothing, unwilling to explain that Stan is the type of person who would protect any poor wretch's honor. He's not even sure how he knows this, but it's true: Stan is good.

Though he has no peripheral vision in tonight's tightly wrapped blankets, Kyle can sense that Stan is already in the bed when Gerald deposits him on the other side. It's something about the scent inside the hut, or the warmth, and Kyle is cheered for the first time all day. It was thoughtful of Stan to arrive before him, so that Kyle wouldn't have to worry about him not showing at all. Getting peed on would have been a perfect opportunity to run into Kenny's arms a few days early.

“Are you okay?” Stan asks as soon as Gerald has walked out the door, not even waiting for his footsteps to recede. 

“I don't know,” Kyle says, unwilling to admit that he's thirsty. “I guess.” 

“I was worried about you all day,” Stan says, and the curtain begins to move then, as if he's lifting the barrier between them himself, unable to wait any longer. Kyle is both sad and relieved to see that this is not the case: Stan is bundled up in his wrappings, which also look tighter tonight, the hood portion closely framing his face. 

“You were worried?” Kyle says, cautiously. 

“Yeah, you were so upset. Kyle, I.” Stan stops himself there and swallows; at least, he seems too – Kyle can't see his throat, the blankets tucked under his chin tonight.

“Your mom bundled you vengefully, too, I see,” Kyle says. Stan blinks a few times, then seems to try to look down at himself, as if he hadn't noticed the blankets. 

“Oh, she – she felt guilty, you know, for doing them kind of looser when I asked her to. I guess she thinks now that I just wanted to get on top of you. Or, you know, she figured that out.”

“Mine wants to disown me.” 

“Nah, she's just—”

“I can't imagine how she'll react when she finds out I've run you out of the village altogether,” Kyle says, getting the words out as quickly and steadily as he can. “I mean, there's failing to be unwrapped, then there's being abandoned on the bonding night.” 

“Yes, I've been thinking about that.” Stan's face gets serious in a very deliberate, young-seeming way that would be funny under any other circumstances. “I'm not going to do that to you, Kyle. It was disgusting of me to even try to get you involved – I guess I thought, before, that it would be this big group of all of us leaving together, rebelling, with Kenny leading us to places he's been, away from here, and I thought – I mean, for at least three nights I thought I'd be able to convince you to come with us.” 

“Are you joking?” Kyle gapes at him, considering the fact that, somewhere around the third night, he'd thought he might convince Stan to stay. 

“No, I'm not joking. I thought it would be – I know it sounds idiotic, but I thought we would all live together and help each other and, ugh, I don't know.” 

“A traveling commune,” Kyle says. “Kenny has really turned your head around backward.”

“It wasn't even him, it was Wendy! But now she's 'considering her options' with Token, because he doesn't want to leave the village. His parents have a big farm, one of the biggest in the whole county, and she's such a hypocrite for being swayed by that! Though I guess she might also love him. She says she does, and she seems different. Dreamy and dumb. Like I was with Kenny, I guess.” 

“Was?” Kyle says, muttering this skeptically. 

“I still love him,” Stan says, firmly enough to make Kyle want to spit. “But it's different. I don't feel as young as I was five days ago.” 

“Well, you're not, technically.”

“You know what I mean, Kyle. Don't you?”

Kyle rolls his eyes, though he does know. He feels as if he's aged a year for every night that he's spent in this hut with Stan, not in the sense that he's gained wisdom but because he feels like he's being drained of life, being pushed closer to the non-negotiable edge of his last chance at happiness. 

“So Wendy is out,” Kyle says, because, though he doesn't know her, he can see in Stan's anxious eyes that her mind is made up about staying with this Token boy. “Who else has been brain washed by the bundling experience?”

“Everyone,” Stan says after a moment's hesitation that allowed Kyle to guess the answer. “Kenny will be so heartbroken. He's been wanting to get away from here forever.”

“So why doesn't the bastard just go? If he's a magical creature or whatever.” 

“He's not a creature – he's tried to explain his magic. It's something to do with immortality, but maybe he was only being, um. Metaphorical. And either way, he has to steal just to eat. He's never had a family. We were going to be his family. They were, I mean. Plus me.” 

“But you're still going,” Kyle says, though he's certain Stan hasn't made up his mind and afraid that, in the end, manipulative Kenny will make the choice for him. 

“I meant what I said when we first met,” Stan says. “I don't think this is right. Especially after what happened to you last night! Why should you be humiliated like that, just because they bound you up in their chains? And made to lie there in it all night like some naughty child? The more I thought about it, all day, it made me sick. I should have torn my way out of my blankets and helped you.”

“Helped me how? You can be indignant on my behalf all you like, and judgmental about the bundling, but the fact is, for less ideological types like, say, _me_ , this is supposed to be the start of my life, and you'd help me more – did help me more – by lying there in the piss with me until sun up. Playing by the rules,” he adds when Stan's nostrils flare at that metaphor. 

“I feel like you must understand why I object to this process,” Stan says, his voice tightening. “And you're refusing to admit it, for some reason.” 

“You make too many assumptions about people,” Kyle says snappily, and then they're both quiet for a long time, lying on their backs. Kyle closes his eyes and tries to fantasize about drinking sweet, cold fruit juice instead of tasting Stan's lips. 

“That's the problem about this process,” Stan finally says, as if he's been formulating his argument this whole time. Kyle turns to him, but Stan is looking at the ceiling, frowning. “You have a whole life, sixteen years of people you meet, and then they throw you into this – intense experience, and of course you're going to question all of it. Like Wendy.”

“I guess you're just stronger than Wendy,” Kyle says. “Or I'm just inferior to Token. Either way, you won. You get to keep your higher standards.” 

“You can be such a little dick hole,” Stan says, speaking to himself, as if he needs reminding about Kyle's bad traits right now. Kyle has never heard someone use the word 'dick hole.' It must be colloquial, native to Stan's village. He struggles to feel offended, because there was something fond and intimate about the insult. 

“We're not a good match,” Kyle says, tired of getting his hopes back up only to have them crushed again. Stan turns to look at him with surprise. Kyle shrugs, not sure if this is evident with the blankets in the way. “It's fine. I'm sorry if I made you feel bad about it.” 

Stan opens his mouth, lets it hang like that for a few seconds, then closes it. He looks at the ceiling. 

“I'm so tired,” he says.

“So sleep. I'm going to. I'm too thirsty to keep talking.” 

“You – oh.” Stan looks at him again, his eyes soft now. “Poor Kyle. I'd rather get peed on again than have you go without water. You didn't have to do that.”

“I think this would drive me crazy,” Kyle says, letting his chest fill with heat that feels like venom. Stan frowns.

“What would?”

“The way you bend over backward to forgive everyone. It's nice when it's me, sure, but with people like this Kenny you so admire? Especially now that I've met him and seen that he's just some cocky street urchin. No, I wouldn't be able to stand that. I'd lose respect for you. Quickly.” 

Stan stares at him for a moment, and Kyle keeps his expression as impassive as possible. 

“Thank you for that assessment,” Stan says, and he rolls away from Kyle. 

Kyle lies there staring at Stan's back, trying to decide why he did that. To protect himself, probably. Whatever Kyle says, Stan is soon going to be dragged off to god knows where because some vagrant who he met on a forest path at the age of eleven has never had a family. Kyle's eyes fill with thin tears that don't spill, and he wishes he would have put it that way instead, because Stan might have laughed and said again that the likes the way Kyle talks. 

At some point, Kyle falls asleep. He wakes up cold, his lips so dry and chapped that it hurts to open them. Stan is turned away from him, and Kyle doesn't dare try to cuddle up to him after what he said. 

“Stan?” he whispers when he can't fall back to sleep. Stan doesn't twitch, and Kyle can't bring himself to apologize at a louder volume. 

When their fathers come to retrieve them, Kyle finds that he's fallen asleep again, and he's surprised to see Stan lying on his back, awake, and closer than he'd been last time Kyle looked at him, though still not touching him. Kyle opens his mouth, but before he can speak their fathers are coming through the door. 

“Everything alright?” Randy asks, scanning their bundles, probably looking for wet spots. 

“Fine,” Stan says. “Only Kyle is thirsty, so you should hurry him home.” 

“Alright,” Gerald says, and he exchanges a glance with Randy. Gerald scoops Kyle off the bed, and Kyle feels panicked, afraid that he might not see Stan again. He tries to speak, but his throat is too dry, and he doesn't know what to say, anyway.

Back at the house, Sheila flies into an apologetic tizzy when she learns that Kyle is thirsty. She brings him orange juice and water and hurries to free his arms so he can drink without assistance. 

“Poor bubbeh,” she says, smoothing down his matted hair while he gulps from the orange juice, then from the water. “It's just as well that tonight's your last night. Then the unwrapping – if you think you'd like that?”

“I'll have to talk it over with Stan,” Kyle says, his stomach dropping. He actually has no idea what their plan is now, or what he wants: a pretend bonding ceremony or a forthright rejection? He wants Stan, but he's ruined whatever chance he had at that in increments. 

He sleeps again after breakfast and has bad dreams. In one he's in bed with Stan, bundled, when he realizes that Kenny is there, too, free of restraints and stroking Stan's cheek. Garrison enters, somehow carrying the full weight of Eric, who is bundled and smirking at Kyle hungrily. 

“He got dumped by his bedmate, and you're the only one left,” Garrison says. She drops Eric onto the mattress, causing an earthquake-like upset, and Kyle turns to Stan for help, but Kenny is slipping out the window with Stan thrown over his shoulder. 

Kyle forces himself to eat at dinner, allowing the tense atmosphere at the table to envelope him. Even Ike is quiet. In the morning, Kyle and Stan will announce their intentions to their families. It does seem cruel, Kyle can admit: the whole course of two lives decided on the basis of six nights. But he can't fault the process, because it worked for him: he wants Stan so much that his bones are aching and heavy, aged by the longing that the blankets have left him to marinate in miserably. 

Sheila joins them on the walk to the hut this time. Sharon and Randy are outside when they arrive, lingering. Sharon looks nervous; Randy seems fairly drunk. 

“Their last night!” Randy bellows. Sharon puts her hand on her shoulder as if to remind him not to speak. 

“It's so overwhelming,” Sheila says, her voice trembling. “Tomorrow – oh, but who knows. Kyle won't tell me anything.” 

“We'll talk to the boys in the morning,” Sharon says, and she gives Kyle a warm smile that makes him feel like dirt all over again, remembering what he said to Stan, how he threw that warmth in Stan's face for the sake of his own pride. 

“I'll set him down and we'll all go have a drink,” Gerald says. 

“Sh'yeah!” Randy says. 

Kyle is so anxious that he's almost expecting Kenny to spring out from under the bed and knife him as soon as the parents have left. He listens to them walking away, their voices receding until all he can hear is his own heart pounding. On the other side of the curtain, Stan is silent. 

“Oh, god,” Kyle says, his voice creaky and small. “I feel like I'm awaiting execution.” 

Stan sighs. It's faint, but Kyle hears it and is heartened. He swallows and fidgets inside his bundle. 

“No one's going to kill you, Kyle,” Stan says. Kyle had expected to be hurt or healed by whatever Stan had to say to him, so he's taken off guard by how aroused he is by that statement, which was spoken with an equal measure of annoyance and mercy. 

“But my life,” Kyle says. He pauses, trying to steady himself. “I know it's got nothing to do with you, whatever happens to me, but—”

“It's got a lot to do with me,” Stan says, firmly but not unkindly. He seems angry and yet still forgiving, maybe in defiance of Kyle's criticism. 

“How so?” Kyle asks.

“I'm your match. We're in this together. Don't cry.” 

“I'm not crying!” Kyle says, though he almost was. He sniffles it all back up his nose. “You can't just stay here and do the thing you were dreading because the matchmaker put us together.” 

“I know, and I'm not planning on it. But I've been stupid, and now I'm stuck.” 

“With me.” 

“No – yes, but also with Kenny. And with – wanting more than one thing, and being afraid of having either of them.” 

“What are the two things you want?” Kyle asks; there's no sense in being coy now. The curtain begins to move. Stan doesn't answer.

Kyle turns toward the curtain, hoping that Stan will at least look at him, though he knows he doesn't really deserve it. As the curtain pulls away, he's surprised to see that Stan is facing him, looking very tired. 

"You didn't really sleep last night," Kyle says. "Did you?"

"A little." 

"Stan - ah. Don't worry about letting me down. You were honest with me from the start, and I tried to manipulate you with the very system you hate. I'm so sorry." 

"Don't give the system that much credit," Stan says. Kyle flushes and shakes his head. 

"Anyway, it's over. I'll help you get away if you like. It's the least I can do for you having been so open with me all this time, and kind. You could have fooled me easily - I was such a chump. I wanted, ah. I wanted to be bonded with you from the first day. I'm just the sort of fool this business was designed to trap." 

"You're not a fool." Stan closes his eyes for a moment. Kyle doesn't dare blink. "God, I hate this," Stan says, fidgeting when his eyes reopen. "Being bound up like this. It's degrading." 

"Yes, you've said," Kyle says, gently. "Well, at any rate, tomorrow we'll be free. For another year, at least, in my case. Have you spoken to Kenny?"

It hurts to say his name, and Kyle feels like Stan can see this on him, his own eyes softening. Kyle wishes he knew how to hide his pain; he feels like he did, before Stan. 

"I saw him last night, yeah," Stan says. "He came to my window." 

"And it's all set? For tomorrow?"

"Kyle, nothing's set." Stan grunts and struggles within his bundle, as if he thinks he can rip free of it by sheer determination, then goes limp again. He's close enough for Kyle to note that his breath smells a little stale tonight. "Kenny is very excited to be going," Stan says, mumbling.

"And you?"

"Me? Oh, I'm petrified. And too much of a coward to even tell him that."

"What are you afraid of?" Kyle asks. Perhaps it's a condescending or obvious question: Stan gives him an irritated look.

"The unknown," Stan says. "And then I'm equally afraid of the familiar - at least, of committing to it for the rest of my life. The familiar being my village." 

"And me," Kyle says. "By extension."

"Don't lump yourself in with my boredom. The past six days have been nothing if not exciting." 

"You've been excited?" Kyle is truly surprised. Stan scoffs.

"Kyle, I -- we had sex." 

"That wasn't sex!"

"It was, too! A kind of sex, anyway - we came. And you were my first kiss." 

"But it's -- all the sort of thing you hate! We're just trapped here together, bored--"

"I haven't been bored."

"Stan, what are you saying?"

"I don't know!" Stan says, the words exploding from him with such force that Kyle's cock takes notice, lurching with interest inside his bundle. "And it's really maddening to have to admit that to you!" 

"Why?" 

"Because you're just - infuriating, and I shouldn't feel closer to you than I do to someone I've known for five years, or closer to you than to Wendy, who I've known since we were both in diapers, but this process has changed everything and I hate it!" 

"Because you hate feeling connected to me," Kyle says, nodding and holding back a dangerous tremble in his throat. "It's fake." 

"It's not! I thought it would be, but it's not. You -- yesterday -- what you said. That you don't respect me--"

"Oh, I didn't mean it, you know I'm just--" 

"Shhh! Listen! It mattered, to me. I was angry with you for it, I wanted to hurt you, too, but the fact is, ah. If I leave, I want to bring you with me." 

"With you and Kenny? Stan--"

"I know, it's impossible! And you don't even want to go. And neither do I. But I also don't want to stay. And I don't want to hurt him."

"Hurt him? Stan, as if that's what you should be considering!"

"Tell me, Kyle, what should I be considering?" Stan's tone is sharp, but Kyle gets the sense that he's sincerely curious.

"Whether or not you hurt him, could you stand to lose him?" Kyle asks. "If not, then you must go with him. If you can live without him, if you stay -- well, you don't have to stay with me, you could just stay, and wait, and think more -- oh, how funny would it be if we were matched again next year? That's just the sort of awful comedy my life resembles." 

"You're getting off topic," Stan says. He sighs and moves closer, and Kyle doesn't mind his stale breath at all when their noses brush together. "All I know is that I need one more night," Stan says. "To make up my mind. But that's too cruel to ask of you." 

"You want to do the bonding ceremony with me?" Kyle says. He swallows, struggling not to surge forward and kiss Stan's face all over. "No, it's. I'll do it. Whatever you decide. I want it." 

"You want it, even if I go?" 

"Yes." Kyle pinches his eyes shut tight. He's thought about this almost nonstop since he left the hut last night. "I need to know what it's like. I won't have it again, not with someone like you. If I'm bundled again next year, it won't be like this."

"How do you know?"

"Because there's only one you." Kyle opens his eyes, peeking into Stan's before dropping his gaze to Stan's chin. "So. There you have it." 

"Kyle," Stan says, and he groans, rocking inside his bundle as if he's trying to get free of it. Kyle looks up to see that Stan is only struggling to move closer, though they're nose to toe already. Stan kisses him, deeply, and Kyle wants to feel reassured by it, but he's mostly confused. He knows he has the right to demand that Stan make a choice now, before they speak to their parents about the bonding, but he can't bring himself to do it, too afraid that Stan would choose Kenny. Kyle gasps for breath against Stan's lips when they finally stop kissing, and wonders if anyone, ever, in the history of bundling, has had to perform well enough in bed to get the bonding to stick. He doesn't want to think of it that way, but he can't help it as their kissing continues and he hopes that his technique is convincing Stan that he should stay. It's not as if Stan has anything to compare it to, unless--

"Did he kiss you yet?" Kyle asks, breathless. Stan is breathing heavily, too, his face still pressed to Kyle's. He shakes his head. 

"I think he wanted to," Stan says. "But." 

"But what? You don't want it?" 

"I'm scared. It's not like with you. He's a man." 

"Ugh," Kyle says, and he rolls onto his back. "Fine, well. I'll be a man tomorrow, according to custom. We both will, as soon as they close the door on and leave us to bond. To fuck," he says, more quietly, because that's the crass word for it that the boys in the village have tossed around for years. Stan wrinkles his nose. 

"You don't actually want that part of it, do you?" he asks. Kyle is crushed: he wants that part of it most of all, aside from keeping Stan forever, which is not officially on the table. 

"You think I'm disgusting?" Kyle says. "Over-sexed?"

"No! It's just that -- I haven't even made you any promises. And you'd give me that?" 

"Better you than whomever I end up settling for." 

Kyle looks up at the ceiling, embarrassed. Stan pushes his nose against Kyle's cheek, either to comfort him or nudge him back into kissing.

"I wish I could trust this feeling," Stan says. "The way it is when I'm with you. But then when I'm out there, in my house, in the same old village doing the same old things -- then I think about staying and how it might turn me into my father." 

"You could never be like him." 

"Kyle, how do you know that? You don't even know him, really." 

"I've seen enough. You're different."

They spend the rest of the evening muttering to each other about their families and avoiding the subject of the future. Kyle allows Stan to kiss him at intervals, sighing each time, as if it's a burden. He's secretly thrilled at every attempt.

"You like kissing me," Kyle says as he's falling asleep, too tired to be careful with his words, if he ever was. 

"I love it," Stan says. Kyle smiles and closes his eyes, wishing there was enough light in the room to show him if Stan is blushing or not. Their bundling candles are dim now, burned almost down to the bottom. When they announce their intention to bond, their mothers will collect some of the wax from each candle for their bonding scrapbook. Kyle falls asleep, thinking about this.

In the morning, Kyle can smell a change in the air. Maybe it's the mothers in the nearby villages baking gifts for their children to offer their newly bonded partners, or perhaps it's something less distinct. The morning of the bonding announcements has always been treated as a holiday, even by the families with no stake in the process that year. And in the evening, of course, comes the celebratory drinking by all the adults in town, and live music, traditionally supplied to give the bonded couples enough noise to cover the sounds of their passionate lovemaking. Kyle has always imagined that most of them are probably rather quiet the first time, nervous and timid. He blinks sleepily at Stan, finding it hard to believe that he'll know what it's like to be bonded at last, only to lose it moments afterward if Stan decides to go. At the moment, exchanging tired kisses with him as they listen to their parents approach, Kyle can't believe that Stan would leave him. 

"Will you do the unwrapping?" Kyle asks hurriedly, realizing suddenly that this is one of many details they have not worked out. Stan nods and smiles queasily. At the door, each of their parents knocks once, as is tradition. 

"Come in," Stan calls, which means that he will be the unwrapper. Kyle flushes, wanting to hide his face against Stan's chest. 

"Boys?" Sheila is first through the door, of course, though she comes in cautiously. Kyle peeks at her, and she smiles when she sees his reddened face. "Oh, good morning." 

"Good morning!" Sharon says as she followed Sheila inside. She seems pleased but anxious. Stan is smiling, and Kyle hopes that no one else here thinks it looks strained. 

"Well, congratulations, boys," Randy says. "I can't exactly say we're surprised. I knew you two had hit it off when we saw you on the floor that first morning." 

"Ha, yes," Stan says. "Anyway, um." He pauses, and Kyle feels the color drain from his face when he remembers what comes next, traditionally. But will Stan remember? "We've fallen in love," Stan says. His voice is shaking, but that's not unusual: it's a hard thing to say out loud even when someone is certain he means it, Kyle assumes. "We intend to be bonded this evening."

The parents give them a celebratory cheer and come to the bed to kiss their cheeks. Kyle is crying a little, unable to stop himself, or to keep his forced smile from shaking. No one seems to think this is a bad sign. 

"C'mon," Sheila says when Gerald scoops Kyle up from the bed. "There's so much to do!" 

"Yes, goodness," Sharon says, and she and Sheila hug each other, laughing.

Kyle's eyes are dry and stinging on the way back to the house. He feels hollow, unable to pay attention to his mother as she chatters about all the bonding preparations they'll soon undertake. Kyle won't have a moment to himself until he's packed off for the ceremony, and he supposes this is a good thing. He doesn't want to be alone right now, his certainty about Stan's unwillingness to leave him evaporating fast.

"Are you in shock, bubbeh?" Sheila asks as she unwraps him in his bedroom. "You're so quiet!"

"I'm nervous," Kyle says, which is true.

"Oh, I'm sure." Sheila ruffles his hair and checks over her shoulder. Gerald is in the kitchen with Ike, both of them working on Kyle's dressings for later, cutting flowers and mixing herbal solutions according to Sheila's instructions. "We can have our talk now, if you like," Sheila says, quietly. "Or we can wait until you're in your bath."

"Mother, I know how it's done," Kyle says. "You don't have to--"

"There's more than just 'how it's done,' Kyle! This is general advice that you need to hear, sweetie. Especially since you have the more difficult role." 

"Oh, god." Kyle covers his face with his hands, not wanting to talk about his role. What will she have to say about his choice to be the one who is unwrapped if she learns that Stan has left him in the aftermath? "Please, don't be too specific. I'll melt." 

"Well, we wouldn't want that. Kyle, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable! I'm only telling you, and of course my own bonding was a bit different, but I think this applies to both boys and girls who are unwrapped - don't be afraid to tell him to slow down, to be gentle, or even to stop if you need a break. You have until dawn to get it in there, after all." 

"Mother! In there? Don't say that!" 

"Kyle, don't be such a baby! If you're going to do the deed you'd better get comfortable with the terminology!"

The rest of his day is so exhausting that he's very glad he'll be the one just lying on his back, even if that entails asking Stan to be gentle as he works his way _in there_. After he's scrubbed with milk, Kyle is left to soak and let the solution that Sheila has applied to his curls become fully caked in. Fortunately, this one smells nice, like berries and sugar. Kyle checks the bathroom door and reaches cautiously between his legs. He shivers when he feels his way down over his balls, wondering how he should wash himself here. His mother is so indiscreet, he's surprised she didn't leave instructions, and very glad that she hasn't, though he does want to be clean for Stan, remembering what he said about using his mouth. He tries pushing a fingertip in, but it hurts too much. Realizing this makes him sweat into his milk bath; he's been too preoccupied with larger issues to worry about being in pain later tonight. What if Stan is huge? Kyle can't even tell how tall Stan is when he's packed into his blankets. Next time Kyle sees him, Stan will be upright, walking into the hut to unwrap him. Kyle grabs his cock and squeezes it, tipping his head back onto the rim of the tub. He's in a fitful state of ecstasy and dread, anticipating how tonight might go, and how it might end.

When his curls are washed clean and the milk is rinsed off, Sheila leaves a vial of very delicate rosemary oil for Kyle to apply 'all over.' He smells like an herb-dusted bread stick when he's done, but it's a nice feeling, not greasy at all, tingling slightly. When the oil has dried he puts on his innermost layer: a short, sheer robe made of very fine silk. It feels so nice against his skin that he has to wait a moment before telling his mother to reenter, willing a semi-erection away. It's not just the robe but the thought of the hands that will remove it: Stan's, warm and tender, maybe trembling. What will he touch first: Kyle's nipples? His shaking stomach, the hollow of his throat? Kyle has to think of something else or risk another erection.

The wrapping takes longer than usual, with flower petals being sprinkled between each successive layer. Sheila has made a special bonding blanket featuring the family crest and intricate floral patterns. Kyle feels self conscious as she ties the large, ceremonial ribbon around him once he's fully bundled. His hair is exposed this time, according to tradition, and to preserve Sheila's efforts to make it look beautiful. Kyle's stomach is growling as they prepare to leave the house. Those who are going in to a bonding ceremony are not allowed to eat during the day. The one who unwraps them will feed them special treats after the consummation. Kyle hopes Stan's mother is a good cook. 

Sheila tucks a few small snacks in with Kyle's pack of clothes and shoes, along with some of his books and a new set of wash rags. He'll retrieve the rest of things later, but it's part of the ceremony to bring a bag of belongings. He's leaving his parents' house forever, in theory. Kyle's heart pounds as Gerald hoists him off his bed. He can't understand how Stan doesn't see this as a grand adventure in itself. 

"Are you ready?" Sheila asks, though Gerald is already carrying Kyle into the kitchen, toward the front door. 

"I think so," Kyle says. He feels slightly nauseous from all the competing smells of the things on his skin, in his hair, and between the layers of blankets, as if he's an overly fussy main course. 

"Oh, bubbeh!" Sheila says, and she finally breaks into tears as they walk out of the house, Ike slouching along with them.

It's dusk, and Kyle can smell the fires from the warming cauldrons that have been lit inside the huts. He cranes his neck to see who else is approaching the huts, and wonders how on earth Eric's poor mother ever got him to his during the bundling nights. She must have used a wheelbarrow. He spots a girl with her black hair in braids and wonders if she's Wendy; Stan described her as a pretty girl with long, dark hair. Kyle supposes he owes her a great debt: if she hadn't gone back on her offer to leave town with Stan and his merry band of rebels, Kyle might not have had even a chance of keeping Stan. 

Inside the hut, the cauldrons cast a warm glow along with rows of variously sized candles that line the narrow inner shelf which circles the room. There's a special quilt laid out over the bed, and Kyle recognizes his mother's work, wondering when she had the time to make all of these things for him. The room has been scented with something nice: cedar and citrus? It might be in the candles, or the garland of fresh greenery that has been draped along the headboard. 

"We're so proud of you, Kyle," Sheila says when he's been laid out on the bed, in the exact center, his bundled feet pointed over the edge of the mattress. He tries not to lose his composure when Sheila leans down to kiss his forehead. Part of him wants to tell her everything, to spare her the disappointment of believing that this is all real, settled and normal.

"You'll do fine, son," Gerald says, a little teary himself. "Stan is a good boy." 

"Goodnight," Kyle says, which is their signal that he's ready for them to leave. He can't take much more of this. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Yes, we'll be there, to walk you to your new house!" Sheila says, though she's not supposed to speak further once Kyle has said goodnight. He doesn't mind. He nods and blinks rapidly as Gerald ushers her out the door and closes it behind him.

Alone in the hut, Kyle takes a deep breath and lets it out, staring up at the ceiling. The hut had seemed so basic for the past six nights, but now it feels enchanted, with the light from all the candles dancing on the ceiling and the cozy decorations that have appeared. Kyle tenses every time he hears a footfall outside, wondering if it's Stan or some other unwrapper who is approaching his own hut. His heart begins to pound as the minutes tick by and nervousness seeps more deeply into his skin, making him sweat inside his wrappings. Meeting Stan when he's unwrapped will be like encountering a whole new person, in a sense, and Kyle is so vulnerable, frozen in place until Stan comes to free him.

Finally, he hears it: footsteps just outside, approaching cautiously. Stan will have said goodbye to his parents at his house before beginning the journey to the hut alone. He won't be wearing any robes or perfumes: the unwrapper wears his everyday attire and cleans himself with nothing more than soap and water, traditionally. Of course, Stan isn't exactly traditional in all manners. Kyle is holding his breath when the door knob turns. 

He goes tense when Stan walks into the hut. He's taller than Kyle pictured, and thicker across the chest, though not fat. He's wearing a coat of worn brown leather, carrying a traveling bag with a small guitar strapped to it, and the wind has given his hair a cowlick. He shuts the door behind him and lingers near it, smiling uncertainly. The candles give a strong enough glow to show Kyle that Stan's cheeks are very red. 

"Hurry," Kyle says, fidgeting. "I don't want to lie like this much longer." 

"Oh, of course -- Kyle." Stan puts down his bag down and comes to the bed, the sound of his boots thumping across the wooden floor boards making Kyle dizzy with nervous arousal. Stan falls onto Kyle with surprising urgency and kisses his lips as his hands travel down to untie the ribbon. He's clumsy with it, still kissing Kyle, his breath choppy. 

"You look wonderful," Kyle says, to reassure him. "Um, strong. Bigger than I thought." 

"I have a face like a kid, I know," Stan says. Kyle can see that his hands are shaking as he pulls the untied ribbon off. Despite his nerves, Kyle has begun to get hard. "It's a new one," Stan says as he carefully removes Kyle's outermost blanket.

"Well, my mother likes to quilt," Kyle says, defensively. Stan grins at him, and Kyle can't suppress a smile. 

"You smell nice," Stan says. He pushes the blanket open and runs his hands over the next one, scattering flower petals. "Lilacs?" he says.

"Yes. My mother preserved them, they're from summer."

"Pretty." Stan gets to work on the next layer without hesitating. Kyle can hear him breathing in heavy, measured pushes. "I should tell you," Stan says, looking up at Kyle as he pulls the next layer off. Kyle's erection is visible now, a pronounced bump. "I went to find Kenny last night, and I couldn't." 

"Went to find him why?" Kyle asks. Stan holds his gaze and shakes his head slowly.

"I don't know," he says. "I expected to figure that out when I got there. But now that I've gotten here -- I feel like I have." 

"Don't mince words, dammit, tell me what you decided!" Kyle had planned on being unwrapped before they discussed any of this, to seduce Stan with his naked form, but he's really been naked this whole time, so defenseless. Stan lets out his breath. 

"Now that I'm here I feel like I'd give up anything to pull off the next two blankets," Stan says. 

"Even him?" Kyle asks, not able to make his voice very strong. Stan nods and leans down to kiss him softly. 

"I think I lost him as soon as you kissed me," Stan says. "Or he lost me, I suppose."

Kyle can't make himself believe that this is really happening, his lips shaking terribly and ruining the kiss. Stan doesn't seem to mind. He sucks at Kyle's bottom lip gently, as if to warm it. 

"Roses?" Stan whispers when he pulls off the next layer and runs his hand over the petals there, scattering them. Kyle shakes his head. He's getting very hard and almost wishes that he wasn't, wanting to separate his already overwhelming emotional relief from baser things like stiff cocks. 

"Peonies," he says, his voice barely working. "Roses are next."

"Oh, don't spoil the surprise," Stan says, and he brushes his thumbs over Kyle's cheeks when his tears fall. "And don't cry. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. I think I knew as soon as I walked in here."

"But -- Stan! You just want sex, alright, and I don't intend to trap you with it. Even if I'd like to, it wouldn't be right." 

"I don't just want sex. I want you. I just want to see you, without all this pomp and decoration. The flower petals are nice, but I want what's inside. At the very center. And that's not just your body, okay?"

Kyle loses it then. He tries to cry quietly, in a restrained and manful way, sighing into Stan's mouth as they kiss. He wants Stan to tear the last layers away, feels as if he's on fire under the blankets and only Stan's touch can cool his burning skin.

"Hurry," he says, whispering this against Stan's mouth. "God, I just. I want to put my arms around you." 

"Yeah," Stan says, looking slightly hypnotized. He shrugs his jacket off and lets it fall to the floor, then pulls off his sweater and undershirt before falling onto Kyle again. Kyle moans at the sight of Stan's bare chest: his parents must make him work around the house and in the yard. He has lean muscles, and some sparse chest hair that Kyle wants to investigate thoroughly once he's free. 

"There they are," Stan says when he sees the rose petals. They're deep red, already wilting slightly from being pressed under the other layers. Stan picks one up and brushes it across Kyle's lips. 

"Don't tease me," Kyle says, though he loves this, and that Stan isn't in too much of a hurry to rip his coverings away. They're symbolic, after all. 

"Last one," Stan says, taking hold of the folded blanket. Kyle nods and lets out his breath. There are no flower petals beneath this blanket, just the robe. Along with the petals, his parents' well wishes and goodbyes will fall away with this last blanket, and he'll be truly and completely in Stan's hands.

Stan pushes the blanket away, and Kyle remains completely still while Stan surveys him. He knows his nipples are visible through the sheer robe, and his careful, labored breathing feels so obvious, though not so much as his erection, which is poking out from the robe, as red as his cheeks and wet at the tip. Kyle doesn't dare adjust himself, though he can't stop his thighs from twitching. Stan's breathing is noticeably deliberate, too, but in a different way, almost a low growl at the back of his throat. He kisses Kyle's lips in a hasty peck before stepping back to take off his pants. When Stan reaches for the hem of his tented undershorts, Kyle undoes his robe himself, though doing so is very nontraditional. Surprisingly, in this moment, he wants to be the one to unwrap his final layer and show Stan his bare skin.

"Kyle," Stan says when he's naked, too, his cock an intimidating length of uncut glory that Kyle wants to lick all over. 

"I hope you don't mind," Kyle says, his hands twitching at his sides. He's still wearing the robe, but it's open around him, exposing everything. 

"You--" Stan says, and then he seems to lose his voice. He falls onto Kyle and covers him, both of them moaning at the feeling of skin on skin after so many nights of blankets, their cocks bumping together clumsily when they kiss. Kyle lifts his arms, almost afraid they won't work. He touches Stan's hair first, then his shoulders. He's so warm, and heavy in the best way, a better kind of blanket.

"I'll come," Kyle says when Stan rolls his hips down. 

"Already?" Stan grins. "Didn't you beat off?"

"Beat off! No! I couldn't even eat!"

"Aww, oh -- Kyle. I jerked off three times. Thinking about you -- about what we said to each other that night. How much I want it to be real."

"Oh, god," Kyle says. He pinches his eyes shut, willing himself not to start babbling about how he can't believe this is real, that he's actually got his arms around Stan and his naked cock on Stan's thigh. "Let's get under the blankets," he says. "I feel like I'm going to explode."

They scramble into the bed properly for the first time, burrowing under layers of clean sheets. Kyle folds his mother's quilt back, not wanting it too close to all that's about to happen. He gathers Stan against him and they both laugh at the luxurious feeling of rubbing naked limbs together, their faces hot when their noses touch.

"What first?" Stan asks. 

"I don't know," Kyle says, though he has some ideas. At the moment he's enjoying just touching Stan's chest under the heat of the blankets. His nipples are stiff; when Kyle pokes at one, Stan responds by fondling Kyle's left nipple. 

"Lift up your arm," Stan says, and Kyle obeys. He twitches away in laughter when Stan tickles his fingers through his arm hair. "It's red," Stan says, beaming, as if he's glad to give Kyle this new information. "That's crazy." 

"It's not so crazy!" 

"I like it, I mean," Stan says. He reaches down to rub his fingertips around the base of Kyle's cock, shyly touching the hair there. "Here, too," he says, his voice pinched. "You're beautiful. I wish it wasn't so cold. I just want to -- look at you." 

"Look with your hands," Kyle says, and he groans when Stan takes hold of his cock. "Yes, like that -- you can stare at me later, when I'm not so scared." 

"Scared?" 

"Well, not scared. It's just weird! I've never been looked at, naked. Not like this, anyway." 

"We can hide under here," Stan says, his hand moving on Kyle again. "It's nice like this." 

"Yes," Kyle says, and they kiss. It quickly becomes wild, their legs tangling together, hips jerking, hands everywhere. The only thing holding back Kyle's orgasm is his spinning head; it's so much to take in, all at once. He sits up on his elbow and draws away from Stan, just slightly, his thigh still resting against Stan's under the blankets, and begins cataloging Stan's features with his fingertips. He slides two fingers down the length of Stan's straight nose, touches his lips and his jaw, the rim of his ear. Stan lies there patiently, swallowing. "Yours is bigger than mine," Kyle says, touching Stan's Adam's apple when he swallows again. 

"Too big," Stan says.

"No, I love it! It's like a man's. All of you is, except for your sweet eyes. Look -- listen. Is Kenny going to come bursting in here?"

"I don't know," Stan says. He takes Kyle's hand and kisses his fingertips, one at a time. "He doesn't know which hut I'm in, unless he's been spying on me." 

"I'd wager he has. He found my house, didn't he?" 

"It doesn't matter - Kyle. There are guards, you know, and even if he came, well. It would be awful, but I wouldn't leave with him. I'm here, with you. For the night -- for the duration." 

"The duration," Kyle says, flatly. That could be interpreted many ways. 

"For good," Stan says, and he sits up, pressing Kyle's hand over his heartbeat. "If I ever leave this town, you're coming with me."

"And Kenny won't be joining us?"

"Highly unlikely. It will break his heart when he finds out how much I love you."

Kyle sits up and kisses Stan possessively, holding onto his ears and nipping at his lips a few times. He gives Stan what he hopes is a blazing look when he pulls back, wanting this moment to function like a spell that can never be broken, one that they both cast together.

"I loved you the moment I saw you," Kyle admits, because he has to give something up, too, he supposes, to make the spell work. He kisses Stan primly on the lips and then tunnels under the blankets to kiss his cock.

As they work through their initial curiosities, Kyle begins to almost want Kenny to come crashing through the door with his arrogant smirk, so that he could watch it drain from Kenny's face when he sees that he's been out-thieved by Kyle, a mere "boy" from the village. He supposes that's cruel, but he's feeling greedy and a little arrogant himself, transformed from an awkward bundled thing to a buffet of delights for Stan's reverent attention. When Stan flattens his tongue at the base of Kyle's cock and licks his way up to nibble at the tip, Kyle screams and comes right in poor Stan's face, very glad after all for the camouflaging music from the village square.

"Sorry, sorry," Kyle says, panting, and Stan sucks the apologies directly off his tongue. "Try to get inside me now," Kyle says, because Stan still hasn't come, and Kyle wants the first batch of their bonding shot right up his ass. "Please," he says, when Stan vaults out of the bed. "What are you doing?"

"Getting the oil," Stan says. "My mother made it for you. Well, for me. Well -- I've got lots of things in here for you," he says, digging through his bag. He looks painfully adorable, squatting naked on the floor. His back is smooth and unblemished, and his balls look remarkably good from this angle, firm and full. Kyle squirms happily under the blankets, wanting every drop of that in him. His nervousness has evaporated so easily that he's almost concerned, but very little could manage to actually bother him right now, as Stan sets out packages of cookies and dried fruit that his mother has tied up with bows. Or maybe Stan tied the bows himself.

"I'm starving," Kyle says. "But I don't want to eat until after. I want you to feed me all those sweet little things after you've, um - well, like the tradition says." 

"These are the best," Stan says, holding up a red tin. "Cinnamon rolls. Can you smell them?" He sniffs the tin. "My mom showed me how to heat them up over the cauldrons." 

"She's very generous to make all this for me." 

"Yes, and--" Stan peeks at Kyle from over his shoulder. "I made you something, too." 

"Oh?"

Stan picks up the guitar and smiles sheepishly, placing it against the wall. 

"That's for later," he says. "I wrote a song." 

"Oh. Oh! How sweet. Come here, did you find the oil?"

Stan bounds back to the bed when he has, and Kyle flattens himself beneath him, giddy to have Stan's skin pressed to his again. He gropes for Stan's cock and has a spike of nerves at the feeling of its thickness in his hand, but he likes the way the foreskin slides in his grip, and he can't imagine anything Stan could do hurting him, now that he's promised to stay. 

"I'm very clean," Kyle says, flushing. He's not sure if he hopes Stan will or won't want to put his mouth there. It seems a bit obscene, for a bonding ritual. 

"You mean -- here?" Stan's hand slides down between Kyle's legs, his palm cupping Kyle's balls and his fingers tickling lower, until Kyle gasps and nods. 

"There, yes." 

"It's so small." Stan sounds more appreciative than anxious about this, though he's touching Kyle only timidly, making him clench and shudder. "Tell me what to do?" he says, and Kyle didn't expect to want to hear that, but he's very glad to give instruction in this area, though he doesn't really know what he's doing, either. 

"Use the oil," Kyle says. "Rub it, you know. Outside, first, but firmly." His face is flaming, but so is Stan's: it's fine. They're bonded in marriage now, or just a few steps away from it, anyway. Seven or eight thick inches worth of steps, by Kyle's estimation, but he can't think about that yet. He'll take a few fingers first, to get used to the sensation. He's already liquefying in Stan's hands, bracing his heels on the mattress and pressing his ass down to get more of this feeling. Stan's touch has gotten surer, perhaps because Kyle gave instructions. "Put one in now," Kyle says when he can't take it anymore, teased into a sweat by Stan's circling fingertips, his cock hard again. He stares at the ceiling and bites his lip, releasing it when Stan touches his cheek. 

"Stop me if it hurts," Stan says. He leans down to kiss Kyle as his finger presses inside him, and Kyle sighs against Stan's mouth, nodding. Somehow he knew it would feel like this. The sensation itself is wonderfully strange; it's a hot, building pressure that makes him want this fullness deeper inside him. There's also the fact that it's Stan who's hovering over him, pushing into him, and breathing onto Kyle's cheek in long, slow exhales. That's what makes it more wonderful than strange, Kyle thinks. 

"You're getting warmer," Stan says, muttering this in secret way that makes Kyle's back arch. 

"It's okay," Kyle says. "I like being warm."

"Inside, too. God, Kyle." 

"Mhmm."

Kyle isn't sure how long it takes to get two of Stan's fingers into him, but he doesn't care. He feels as if they've left time, the village, and everything that's been haunting him since he learned about the concept of bundling behind. They're alone together in the most sacred way, and Kyle feels certain that if Kenny threw open the door of their hut he wouldn't find them, or at least wouldn't see them: they're hidden from everything else by this closeness, protected.

"I might shout and squeeze your arms," Kyle says when Stan is slicking his cock, kneeling uncertainly between Kyle's open legs. "Don't worry if that happens. Stan, you look so worried."

"It's just," Stan says, and a chill pierces Kyle's heart: if Stan stops now, changes his mind, walks out the door, Kyle will be lost forever, outside of their safe world together and lost to the real world, too, adrift. Stan sits there looking fretful for a few awful seconds, holding his oiled cock like it's a sword he's not sure how to wield. "I can't believe how well I feel I know you," he says. "After such a short time. I can't stand the thought that it's an illusion, that it's not just true. It feels so true." 

"Then feel it when you're inside me," Kyle says. He sits up and takes Stan's shoulders, coaxing him down. "Then you'll know it's real. I know it's real. Let me show you – come and feel it."

Kyle doesn't shout when Stan pushes inside him; it takes the breath out of his lungs. He does squeeze Stan's arms, very hard, afraid that his nails are digging in but too in need of something to brace himself on to ease his grip even a little. Stan sinks in slowly, keeping his unblinking eyes on Kyle's, suddenly not afraid. He asks if it's okay, and Kyle can only nod, his eyes wide and his voice gone. It hurts, but not like a cut or a bruise or anything he wants to end. He keeps his hands clawed around Stan's biceps and feels sweat streaking down over his temples as he waits to know what it's like to have Stan completely within him, the closest they can get. When Stan sighs into his mouth, Kyle knows this is it: Stan is all in, resting against the deepest parts of Kyle that anyone will ever touch, his balls snug over Kyle's openness. It's done; they've done it. Kyle lets out his breath and closes his eyes when Stan kisses his nose, eyelids, cheeks. 

"You're right," Stan says, and Kyle relaxes a little, his fingers flexing on Stan's arms. Stan seems to close around him even more tightly, though Kyle doesn't feel squeezed, just cozy. "I feel it," Stan says, murmuring this into Kyle's ear, his stomach pushing against down Kyle's with every heavy breath. "And I'm sorry. I already knew. I was just scared. You changed all my stupid plans, everything." 

Kyle stares up at Stan for a while, trying to steady his choppy breath. He thinks he's earned the right to be quiet, trying to fully absorb the feeling of being so open. He also wants to wait until he can speak without a tremble in his voice.

"I've got my own stupid plans," he says. The shape of Stan inside him is beginning to feel nowhere near normal but certainly interesting, on the verge of pleasurable, though he can't discern how or why yet. "I want – I want to sit together by a fire when it's cold outside, and I know that's not too thrilling, if you might otherwise be traveling places and sleeping under the stars, but I think it's exciting, just being under the same roof with you." 

"Even being on the same earth is exciting," Stan says. "Even thinking about you during the day, wondering what you're doing, if you're thinking of me -- and I want that, too, Kyle. Our own little roof. I was so glad to see they'd lit cauldrons in here. I wanted you to be warm when I unwrapped you." 

"I am warm. You can move, you know. Give it a try."

"I'll finish if I do."

"But you emptied yourself three times!" Kyle says, smiling, secretly glad that it's going to be done soon, so they can take a break to hold each other more comfortably, and eat those treats. 

"It's not the same," Stan says. "My hand, I mean. This is – I never thought it could be like this."

"You never thought you'd make love to another person?" Kyle says, laughing.

"Not to someone like you," Stan says, and he pulls back just a little, his eyes fluttering shut when he pushes back in. "I didn't think I had a missing piece."

"You didn't feel it? I felt it my whole life, that longing."

"No, I did. I just didn't understand how I could find it in one person. I thought it would be – adventure, accomplishment, the whole world. I didn't think a person could feel that way, like all my hopes and dreams but real enough to touch, that I could hold that feeling in my arms—"

Kyle kisses Stan, unable to wait any longer. He holds Stan against him when he comes, petting his hair and sighing with a relief that actually feels like graduation to adulthood: he's done it. He's a man now, and he's made one of Stan, too. He feels as if he'll be invincible, for a time, fortified by this. And when his temporary invincibility wears off, he can ask Stan to give it to him again. 

"Are you alright?" Stan asks as he pulls out. Kyle realizes he's wincing and nods, moaning when Stan pops out entirely. It's an unexpectedly nice feeling, the sudden hollowness and lingering ache, perhaps because Stan is kissing him as he experiences it. "You didn't come," Stan says.

"I did, before. And I will again, later." 

"Yes, you will," Stan says, and Kyle shivers under the weight of him, grinning.

They hold each other under the blankets until Kyle's stomach starts making pained, whining sounds. Stan tells him to stay put, as if Kyle was going to break tradition by leaping out of bed and grabbing the food himself. He sits up and stretches while Stan heats the cinnamon rolls over one of the cauldrons. 

"We're bonded now," Kyle says. 

"Feels like it, too," Stan says. "I didn't expect it to feel so real, right away. I can't believe I thought I could leave -- I can't believe you were going to let me do that and walk out!" 

"I don't know that I would have, really. I might have tied you up or something." 

"As if I could have left you, after we did that." Stan smiles at him and tosses a bag onto the bed. "Candied ginger," he says. 

"I'm holding out for the rolls." Kyle can smell them now, gooey sugar and soft bread. 

"What do you want to drink?" Stan asks. "I've got some fancy wine thing from my dad, and juice. And spring water." 

"I want some of everything. It's our bonding night feast. Stan!" 

"What?"

"I don't know. I'm happy. But I feel like I'm made out of paper, like some spark is going to ignite me at any minute. You're not having second thoughts?"

"Nope," Stan says, but Kyle still feels nervous. Stan can't have changed his mind about everything, even if he has fallen in love with Kyle. When the ceremony is over, the treats consumed and the luxurious scents washed from Kyle's skin, their real life will begin. They'll have to milk cows and chop firewood. The winter is only beginning; the nights will be so long and quiet. Kyle would happily be snowed in together for days, but not if Stan will lie suffering beside him, dreaming of faraway beaches that Kenny might be sunning himself on.

The rolls are delicious, and Kyle tries to put his worries out of his mind. It doesn't matter, anyway: what's done is done. He wishes this was more of a comfort, and eats until his stomach hurts, curled under Stan's arm with the blankets pulled up to their chests. 

"This is good," Kyle says when he tries the wine, surprised that he likes it. It's sweet and almost syrupy, but not too cloying. 

"My dad makes it himself," Stan says. They smile at each other, and Kyle wonders if the silence that follows is awkward. Perhaps he's just being paranoid. 

"I can't believe we'll have our own house," Kyle says. "It's so strange. My father is going to make me his apprentice. That means filing scrolls and fetching his lunch, I think, but it's something." 

"It's great," Stan says, and he squeezes Kyle closer, burying his face in Kyle's curls. "You smell so good," he says, muttering this in a dreamy way that makes Kyle wonder if he hasn't gotten a little drunk from the wine. Does Stan like to drink? Does he take after his father in that sense? He said before that he doesn't want to be like him, but Kyle can't help but wonder, and worry, that Stan might escape into bottles when he can't run away entirely. "What's wrong?" Stan asks, and Kyle laughs at himself. 

"Just - nothing. It's all a lot to think about. Starting a new life." 

"It's not entirely new. We'll still live here, have dinner with our parents once a week, all of that." 

Kyle opens his mouth to blurt that 'all of that' is the life Stan was dreading six days ago, but he's startled by a sound from the door before he can. The knob is turning, very slowly. 

"Oh, shit," Stan says, and his grip on Kyle tightens.

Kyle pulls the blankets up to his shoulders when the door opens, his heart beginning to pound with fury just as much as fright. This is their sacred night, their special place, and here's the fucking thief, doing what he does best: taking what isn't is. Kenny closes the door behind him after entering. He's got a large duffel bag slung over his shoulder and he seems cleaner than he did when he was in Kyle's bedroom window, like he's scrubbed himself for his own special night with Stan. 

"Are you finished?" Kenny asks, looking at Stan and speaking blandly, as if Kyle isn't in the room. Kyle's heart plummets. He clutches at Stan's thigh under the blankets, afraid to look into his eyes. 

"Finished with what?" Stan says. "You can't be in here - ah, god, Kenny. I tried to find you."

"I know. I saw you looking." 

Kenny sets his bag down and surveys the mess on the bed: unwrapped candies and cookies, the wine cups, a jug of juice and the canteen with the spring water. The tin that held the cinnamon rolls is at the end of the bed, dark sugar crusted along the edges. Kenny smiles as if this is all very quaint and amusing. 

"You saw me?" Stan says. He frowns and shakes his head. "What? Were you hiding from me?"

"Not hiding, exactly. But I didn't want to be found and have to listen to your last minute waffling. Come on, Stan. You've had your fun with the kid."

"Kenny, you don't understand." Stan is still holding Kyle, which is a good sign, but Kyle feels frozen between utter heartbreak and complete deliverance, scared to move. "I'd come to tell you that I can't leave with you," Stan says. "I'm sorry, but—" 

"Chickening out like the others?" Kenny's eyes flick to Kyle, and Kyle does his best to make his gaze steely and defiant. 

"He's not a chicken," Kyle says. "Stan can leave this village any time he wants. He's just not leaving now, with you." 

"Kyle," Stan says, and he gives him a gentle squeeze. Kyle will die if Stan lets go of him for even a moment in the presence of this intruder. "It's not what I thought," Stan says to Kenny, his voice shaking. "I think that matchmaker is a witch after all, a real one. She found my match, and I love him." 

"Or she put a spell on you to make you think so," Kenny says, and Kyle scoffs. He's beginning to spot the cracks in Kenny's tough exterior: now that he's moved closer to the bed, Kyle can see the desperation in Kenny's eyes, and his silenced shock at seeing Stan naked in bed with Kyle.

"She gave me no potions," Stan says. He's speaking softly, consolingly. 

"There was tea, though, you said? At your matchmaking?"

"It was no spell!" Stan says. "I didn't fall in love right away, after drinking some tea."

"Of course you didn't. You were tricked into it, same as if you'd been given a potion, tricked by this whole charade." Kenny gestures around the hut, dismissing everything in view. 

"I've come to understand Stan's objections to this process," Kyle says, trying to channel the calm mediator's tone that his father uses in situations like this. "And your objections, too, and I'm sorry they've never let you be bundled. That's horrible. But Stan is staying here. Open your eyes, thief. You can see that you've lost him. Don't embarrass yourself." Perhaps that was more his mother's tone, but he's not sorry he said it. Kenny seems to puff up a bit, defensively, but it doesn't amount to much. He looks to Stan, breathing heavily.

"Please," Stan says. "Forgive me. I didn't know myself, before now." 

"Before him?" Kenny says. He looks at Kyle, nostrils flaring. "He's just like all of them, Stan. Worried about appearances and married to ritual. You may have enjoyed his body, but you don't know him, and he doesn't know you."

"You've always presumed too much about me," Stan says before Kyle can shout a rebuttal. Stan's voice is firmer now, his fingers flexing on Kyle's side under the blankets. "I didn't want to hear it when Kyle said so, but I was very young when we met, and you were so impressive to me, different and independent, and -- you're special, Kenny. You have a place in this world, I know it, but it's never been in this town. And it's no longer with me."

"Lecturing me like you're so grown up," Kenny says. "Just because you've successfully put your dick in your assigned partner. That makes you a man after all, like they promised? You're right. I never knew you as well as I thought I did."

"You wanted a friend," Stan says tightly. "I don't fault you that. And I was so enamored. I needed someone to admire. Let's not ruin it now that we're saying goodbye."

"I pray you'll be happy, then," Kenny says. He picks up his duffel and slings it over his shoulder. "I fear you won't, Stan. My little Stan. I had such hope that you would escape all this." 

"I have," Stan says. "It won't be what I feared if Kyle is with me. He's the better village I wanted to find on my journeys. Right here." 

"I hope you wanted a sentimental poet," Kenny mutters, looking at Kyle, who raises his lip in lieu of responding. Kenny's smug smile returns, less convincingly, and he salutes them as he backs toward the door. "Farewell, town folk," he says. "I leave you to your herb gardens and wash tubs." 

"Go safely, old friend," Stan says, and Kyle is very glad Kenny didn't get the last word. Kenny closes the door hard when he leaves, not quite slamming it.

When he's gone, Kyle finally turns to look at Stan, who slumps tiredly into Kyle's circling arms. Kyle never anticipated loving just this so much: the solid weight of a worn out boy against his chest, and the thrill of letting him take comfort there.

"You were very good," Kyle says, his hand still shaking when he strokes Stan's back. "Firm but kind." 

"I feel awful for him," Stan says. "But he can be so cruel when he's backed into a corner."

"He's in no such corner. Off he goes, to find his happiness elsewhere. Don't spare him another thought. Not tonight, anyway."

Kyle isn't sure this command can be obeyed, but if Stan's thoughts linger on Kenny he doesn't let on. He gets the guitar and plays his song for Kyle while Kyle drinks more wine, trying to clear the lingering nervousness from his system. He believes, at least, that Kenny won't be back tonight, and Stan's song is sweet, if a bit embarrassing. In it, Kyle is a bird and Stan begs him to answer him from the treetops and ride on his shoulder. At least, Kyle presumes he's the bird.

"Sorry," Stan says as soon as he's finished, his face very bright. Kyle shakes his head and surges forward to grab Stan's cheeks and kiss him. "I hardly ever play in front other people," Stan says when Kyle pulls back. "I don't know how I ever thought I'd be a traveling minstrel." 

"You could teach music at one of the schools," Kyle says. "The music teacher in my village is so old, she must be retiring soon." 

"I'll be working with my dad in the quarry until then," Stan says. "But, maybe. I should warn you, my mother says I'm not ambitious enough." 

"Well, good. I wouldn't want an ambitious man. I knew a few of them in school." He's thinking of Eric, mostly. "Too often ambition comes with petty meanness."

They discuss this a bit, passing the wine, until their talking gives way to tired kissing. Kyle is too sore from his first time to take Stan again, but he wants more of something, and Stan must be able to read it on his face, or in his eyes: of course Kyle remembers what Stan said he would do for his bedmate, and of course Kyle wants it. He doesn't have to ask with words. It's even better than he imagined, Stan's tongue soothing over his raw spots and pushing in slightly, a completely different sort of penetration, soft and wet. Kyle comes with his cock in his hand, spraying himself shamelessly. 

"I still can't believe I peed on you in this bed," Kyle says when they're wrapped up together under the blankets. Stan is spooned up behind him, limp with exhaustion after coming again, this time in Kyle's mouth. "What a horror story. Thank you for not telling it." 

"You know, it's strange," Stan says, mumbling this against Kyle's neck. "That moment was like an epiphany for me, I think. I felt like you already belonged to me, and it was up to me to protect your pride." 

"Pride! As if I had any, that morning. But thank you. Stan, thank you. I thought my life was over."

"Kyle, it was only pee. No one was standing by to execute you for it."

"Not just that! Thank you for staying. I hope you won't regret it." 

"Stop fretting," Stan says, and Kyle can hear that he's nearly asleep. Kyle has never had five orgasms in one day, and this was a draining day even beyond all the sex. He's very fond of the idea that he's wrung Stan completely dry, even if he only witnessed two of these emissions personally. He presses his ass back against the heat of Stan's body when Stan goes quiet and heavy around him. Kyle is close to falling asleep but almost afraid to, because he doesn't want this night to end. It feels too much like a good dream that will become a vague memory at daybreak.

He rolls onto his stomach at some point as he sleeps, and he wakes with Stan draped across his back, Stan's arm stretched out over his on the mattress. The blankets are rolled back to rest just under their shoulders; it's warm in the hut, or maybe just in the bed, with their flushed skin pressed together. Kyle hears Stan sigh and knows he's awake. When Kyle moves his fingers, just slightly, Stan strokes him from his nails to his knuckles, then again, and again, until Kyle has nearly drifted back to sleep. 

"They're going to ring the bells soon," Stan says, whispering. He kisses Kyle's ear as if to apologize for needing to wake him, but Kyle is glad that he has. The last bonded couple to dart out of their hut half-dressed when the bells ring are always laughed at by the gathered crowd. Kyle rolls onto his back and Stan sits up on his elbow, smiling down at him.

"It feels so good," Kyle says, proud of how deep his tired voice sounds. "Being naked. No more wiggling around in tight wrappings." 

"It's amazing," Stan says. He touches Kyle's cheek, runs his fingertips over Kyle's jaw and down the length of his neck. "They must do it to make us appreciate being able to touch each other at last. More so than to keep us from fucking too soon, I think." 

"Maybe," Kyle says. He sits up and moans at the mess on the bed: food wrappings and remnants, crumpled packaging, and some come stains that narrowly missed his mother's special quilt. His head aches from the wine; they finished the bottle. "Can we leave the room like this?"

"I think we're meant to," Stan says. "It shows we had a good time."

Kyle wants a bath, but they won't be able to have one until they're in their new home together. The thought is almost too much to bear: too joyous, too grown up, too fast. Kyle pauses in the middle of dressing, glad to be putting on regular clothes instead of some ceremonial robe. Stan notices his hesitation and gives him a hug. 

"Don't worry so much," Stan says. "It's me and you now. I'll have your hand in mine the whole time." 

"I'm not worried," Kyle says, because that's not quite the right word. He can hear the crowd gathering outside, ready to watch the couples walk from their huts to their new homes. He puts his sweater on, then allows Stan to smooth down his curls. They both sit on the floor to put on their boots.

"What do you think our house will be like?" Stan asks. He sounds curious; maybe not quite excited. Kyle can't wait to investigate all the details: silverware and window dressings, their own little bed, the stone work on the hearth, the color of the floorboards. He shrugs and tries not to let his excitement show, aware that Stan is less enthusiastic about domestic trappings. 

"It will be like all the others in the new neighborhood," he says. "I think there are ten in a little group. We'll share a well. The houses have one bedroom, a small kitchen, interior plumbing. Probably window boxes," he says, muttering this, because it's the sort of quaint fixture of country life that might annoy Stan. 

"We can plant rosemary," Stan says. He pulls Kyle to him and sniffs his neck. "I love that smell. Can you get the rest of the oil from your mother?"

"Ah - of course! Well, I think. I'll ask her."

It seems too bright when they finally walk out of the hut, answering the ringing bells down in the town square. Kyle holds Stan's hand tightly and blinks against the glare of the winter sun, waving when he spots his parents and Stan's among the revelers, cheering them on. They'll see them tomorrow; they're expected to prepare a welcoming dinner for them tomorrow night and host them in their new home. Kyle discreetly peeks at the other couples emerging from the huts near theirs: he notices Eric first, walking hand in hand with a blond boy less than half his size who Kyle feels deeply sorry for before he sees the adoring expression on the boy's face when he beams at Eric. Craig is holding the hand of a fierce girl from the village named Lizzie, who Kyle remembers chiefly for having pushed him into a pig sty at age five, unprovoked. The black-haired girl with the long braids is with a handsome boy with dark skin who has a regal air. 

"Is that Wendy?" Kyle asks Stan, whispering. 

"Oh – yeah! And that must be Token. Hmm, he's tall." 

They wave, and Wendy pulls Token toward them when she sees Stan, somewhat lessening his regal presentation. 

"So this is Kyle!" Wendy says, she and Token falling in alongside them as the couples walk toward their new homes. "Oh, look at his hair! So much more fetching than I pictured."

"Ha," Kyle says, squeezing Stan's hand. He smiles when Stan squeezes back. Already they have a kind of wordless language.

"It's good to meet you," Stan says, speaking to Token. "Maybe Wendy has told you about her friend Stan?"

"She did," Token says. "And your predicament with some woodsman. I'm glad to see you got out of that." 

"Token!" Wendy says, and a wordless communication seems to pass between them, too. It occurs to Kyle that every couple in this promenade had naked, holy sex last night, and he feels his cheeks getting hot, guiltily enjoying the idea.

"He was no woodsman," Kyle says. "More like a forest sprite."

"That's accurate," Stan says, and Wendy laughs. 

"You're precious," she says, and Kyle can't tell if she's talking to him or the both of them.

When they reach their little house, the mailbox reads _Marshlovski_ and there are flower boxes under the two front windows, waiting to be filled with soil and seeds in the spring. Kyle realizes that he's squeezing Stan's hand very hard and laughs at himself self-consciously, letting up a bit. 

"I'm supposed to carry you over the threshold," Stan says.

"Well, I'm tired of being carried. Six nights of my father carting me around like a swaddled baby was enough – can we just walk in together?"

"Yeah." Stan smiles so brightly that Kyle feels he deserves a medal. "That's good – yes." 

The front room, a kind of kitchen and den combination, is bright and cheerful. Kyle goes instantly to the cupboards, trying not to exclaim with delight when he sees the brand new plates and long-stemmed glasses, bright white saucers and tea cups, and one whole drawer full of folded cloth napkins in seasonally appropriate colors. There's a gleaming cheese knife with a ceramic handle, a glass pitcher he'll use for freshly squeezed juice, a polished wooden salad bowl, a beautiful casserole pan in mustard yellow, his favorite color for kitchen things – he knew his mother would spare no expense to outfit the place well, but he's beside himself as he inventories this bounty, feeling as if he's tearing through ten birthdays worth of presents. He looks up from his revelry to see that Stan is nowhere to be seen.

"Darling?" he calls, and he crumples internally when he hears himself sounding like his mother, transformed from a freshly minted adult to a middle aged house wife just by the sight of new kitchen things. His heart pounds as he walks through the house, looking for Stan. Maybe he bolted as soon as he saw the cheese knife, or the way Kyle was drooling over it. What idiot could be impressed by such a thing? His eyes are blurring with tears by the time he walks into the bedroom, where he finds Stan almost glowing in the light from the window behind the bed, which is just big enough for the two of them, framed with a cherry headboard. 

"Oh, you're so tired," Stan says, hurrying to Kyle. "I was just admiring this bed – my uncle Jimbo made it, I think. He's a carpenter, and he said he had a wedding present for me. I was so afraid of letting him down, after all his hard work, and now I don't have to, I can just enjoy the bed. God, Kyle—" Stan pulls Kyle to him and hugs him tightly, kissing his curls. "Thank you for making me happy to be here," Stan says. "No one else could have." 

"You don't hate it?" Kyle asks, not even sure this is audible. "How small it all is?" Stan shushes him and lifts him off his feet as if this is their threshold: over the footboard, into the bed. 

"We're only sixteen," Stan says, flopping onto the bed beside Kyle. "This is big enough for now. If we grow bigger, we'll do it together, and then we'll search for our next kingdom. Won't we?" 

Kyle nods and kisses Stan for a long time, though he wants to examine the bath and then take one, to scrub himself clean. He lingers, tired and glad to be kissed, even as he wonders which soaps and towels await him. He forgives himself for caring: it's not that it really means all that much. It's just that he's always wondered about the physical details that would dress the set of his great happiness, and now that he has it, all the brand new pieces in place, he can't wait to pull open every drawer. 

 

~the end~


End file.
